1920-05-25

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. W. D. EULER (North Waterloo):: I would like to bring to the attention of the Government a matter of great public importance There appears to be a state of unrest among certain of the postal enn-p'oyees with threats of a strike. I understand that the Government have introduced a Bill, which has been given its first reading, providing for increased remuneration to the postal employees dating back to April 1 of last year, but so much time has elapsed in bringing this legislation into effect that the men concerned are very much dissatisfied. I would therefore ask the Government what is being done in the matter, an I whether they can make any pronouncement as to when the added pay, if any, will reach the men.
Hon. NEWTON W. ROWELL (President of the Privy Council): As my hon. friend has stated, a Bill is now before the House which, when passed, will authorize the payment of the moneys which the Pod Office employees desire to secure. That Bill would have been proceeded with before this had not so much time been taken up with the Franchise Bill which had the right of way.

As soon as that measure is disposed of the Bill in question will be proceeded with The matter can then be dealt with.
, THE BUDGET.



DEBATE CONTINUED ON THE ANNUAL


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, May 21, the debate on the motion of Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Hon. W. S. Fielding.
Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to detain the House for what I hope will be no very great length of time, considering that it is a Budget debate, I feel that it is my duty to voice what is a very general sentiment, and that is a sentiment of gratification that I once more apeak in the presence of my right hon friend the Prime Minister of Canada. Sir, those of us who in an intimate degree shared the heavy load which the country placed upon his shoulders followed his search for health with the utmost sympathy, and in my own case I can say truly that my mind and heart were continually with him. I have had the honour of being his colleague in this House for twelve years. We have differed politically-we never differed otherwise,-we never differed except in opinion. His tenacity during the whole of the great struggle, and especially his statesmanlike patience in hanging on to the tough job of forming Union Government, have made it certain that when the heedless blast of time has swept away the passion and the prejudices of the present the name of Borden will occupy no lowly place on the lid of those who, in the Great War, kept the standard floating in high places of the field.
I feel sure the House joins with me in offering my right hon. friend the warmest congratulations that our hearts can conceive on his return to work and our best wishes for a long and useful public service in the future.
I turn to another matter when I compliment my old friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) on the personal aspects of his financial statement. I think every one I have heard speak of his speech has admitted that the preparation and presentation of his case was somewhat in the nature oif a personal triumph. For the case itself, Sir, I perhaps cannot say quite-so much-that will develop as I go along

Meantime I must remember that we are dealing with an Amendment as well as with a Budget Speech. There are considerable disadvantages attaching to the practice of moving amendments to a complicated Budget on the part of the chief critic in one's having to plan before having seen the Budget itself. I cannot help thinking that if my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) had heard the Budget Speech and studied it for a day or two he would have produced a rather different amendment than that which he presented to the House. I should have hoped it would have contained more milk and less water under those circumstances, and would have been less a shilly-shally, temporizing, and opportunist piece of print. Nevertheless it has one virtue-it calls for a downward revision of the tariff.


Mr. GAUVREAU:: Hear, hear.


Michael Clark: It calls for a considerable reduction of the tariff. Well that is at least one virtue. I do not know that I am unfortunate with the preambles of the amendments that come from my hon. friends of the Official Opposition. I do not quite sympathize with the preamble of this amendment. It is quite true that my right hon. friend the ex-Finanee Minister (Sir Thomas White) promised a revision of the tariff downward, after an examination last fall. But my right hon. friend is no longer a member of the Government. He unfortunately, and with the sympathy of all of us, felt that his health did not enable him further to carry on the business of that position,-the Government was not to blame for that. Then we had a fall session and I do not know that any one on this side of the House was much more opposed to a fall session than honourable members on the other side. Anyway we had to come here and do our duty, and I think, common fairness would lead the Opposition to recognize that these were almost insuperable obstacles in the way of a thorough examination all over the country in the fall of last year followed by a revision of the tariff. And we are further in this strange position, that the amendment calls for a revision from the Government which in its Budget Speech is promising this very thing. It is a most peculiar position from a parliamentary point of view. A revision is promised by the Government and a revision is asked for by the Official Opposition, and thus we of the Independent party have to make a choice between the two positions. However, as I have said, the amendment calls for a downward division of the tariff.
The fact that both parties are pledged to revision is a strange comment upon the position which was taken by my right hon. friend, the ex-Minister of Finance, in a speech which he made, I think in reply to some remarks of mine, in the debate on the Address. I regret very much that my right hon. friend is not paying one of his somewhat infrequent visits to the House of Commons to-day. However, I am not going to say anything very savage about my right hon. friend; and I do not think any one will imagine I have treated him very badly.
My right hon. friend (Sir Thomas White) put up the argument that what the coun try needed at the present time was stability, and he seemed to argue that that stability was to be arrived at under a tariff. Well, that position would scarcely be supported by the faet that on both sides of the House at this moment it is recognized that the tariff is not stable, because we all want to revise it. I do not know whether we all want to revise it downward -I know that on this side we want to revise it downward. They have had a tariff in Germany for a great many years. Germany is not in a very stable condition to-day. Germany's tariff policy was entirely mixed up with her militarist policy; the two together produced a top heavy bureaucracy, and instead of stability we have absolute chaos, confusion, and the products of an unstable condition. If one looks at the United States they had in that country within my recollection, a Wilson tariff-not President Wilson but a former Minister of Finance- a McKinley tariff, a Dingley tariff, an Underwood tariff, and what the next one will be will depend upon the name of the next Secretary of the Treasury.
We have had in Canada, first the propagation of the National Policy; then the Fielding tariff; then the White tariff-now there is a double demand for a revision and the question comes to all of us what are we going to do with the blessed thing? Yet my right hon. friend the ex-Minister of Finance brings that before us as the emblem of stability. The fact is that once you seed the bad of protection you sow a crop of vested interests; you may be lowering the tariff, you may be raising it, you are always tinkering and pottering with it, but it is never stable. Nothing is ever settled in this world unless it is settled right, and the only way you can settle the tariff right is. to cut its head off just in front of its tail.
Now I have had this much to say in answer to my right hon. friend (Sir Thomas

White) on the question of the stable nature of the tariff. It would appear that the unstability of the creed communicates itself also to the apostle. I do not know that my right hon. friend's career on this tariff question has been an example of very great stability. For fifteen years he supported Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Government of that day in a policy which was always proclaimed-while they were in power anyhow -as a policy of tariff for revenue. But he went down to Toronto a few weeks ago and put himself at the head of the protectionist forces of this country as far as a proclamation could put him at the head. (He said: " We must have a tariff not only for the production of revenue but we must have a tariff also for the building up of our industries. He proclaimed himself then and there a high protectionist. There has been a great evolution because last year in this House he was promising a revision of the tariff and, we understood, a revision downwards. He was at that time hobnobbing to a considerable extent with western members and promising a revision of the tariff which we understood was to be in a downward direction. He now proclaims that a tariff is needed not only for revenue but for protection, overlooking that he is making a tariff that should perform two completely hostile operations. If the tariff is to build up our industries it must keep goods out of the country. If it is to give us revenue it must bring goods in. There is a stable performance for you! It has to bring goods in and to keep them out, at the same time conducting two completely different operations.
My right hon. friend has given some other examples on instability in regard to the tariff. He and the Government of which he was a member came into power in 1911 pledged against free wheat. We were told that free wheat would ruin the country, break up the British Empire and turn the traffic on our railways north and south instead of east and west. They were pledged against free wheat. I remember his maiden speech in which he said that the great province of Ontario had spoken and was it not the part of wisdom to listen to it? But my right hon. and stable friend gave us free wheat which he said would ruin the Empire.
For three and a half years after the war began he told us that the Income Tax was the most impossible consideration for Canada that could enter the mind of any Finance Minister, and that it could not be thought of. He talked against the irnposi-
[Mr. M. Clark.I
iicn of the Income Tax but he imposed it himself. It was imposed by my stable friend the ex-Minister of Finance. He was still the Minister of Finance at the time that tax was imposed. This criticism applies as much to the Government as to himself except that there was this difference: that some of them bad not a past Liberal record as being in favour of a tariff for revenue only. I understood that an outstanding figure in that regard is to be seen in the person of the hon. the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen). No reed which ever shook its slender tip in the summer wind could compare with the exMinister of Finance as an emblem of instability.
I revert for a moment to the question of tariff revision, and I want to say, and say it with the utmost seriousness, that in my opinion the immediate future prosperity-yes, the immediate future financial solidarity, honesty and stability of this country, depend upon a revision of the tariff downward and that very speedily. At this point in my remarks I would say that the basis for that very strong and emphatic statement is the opinion-not my own opinion-but the opinion of everybody who is worth listening to in Canada upon this subject. We must increase the commerce of this country-export and import. We must increase the commerce of this country in the years immediately in front of us-export and import. What does Mr. Lloyd Harris who has had a remarkable chance of forming an opinion upon this subject, say? What do our great financial leaders say? What do Sir Vincent Meredith, Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor and Sir Edmund Walker say? Every one of these authorities says just what I have proclaimed though I admit they attach more importance than I do to an excess of exports over imports, although I will show you presently why we must have an excess of exports over imports. The commerce of the country must be increased and my hon. friend from Gloucester (Mr. Turgeon) put the matter in a way which cannot be disputed when he said the other night that ships do not sail loaded one way to come empty the other. The only way you can carry on foreign commerce is to import-to sell exports in exchange for your imports. I mention the same authorities, Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor and Sir Edmund Walker, as concurring substantially in the statement that in the years immediately before us we need to export $200,000,000 worth of produce, roughly, to pay the

foreign liabilities of our	peopleto pay the interest on money that Canadians in various capacities have borrowed from abroad we need to export every year $200,000,000 worth of produce, because that is the only form in which you can pay that interest. Mr. Speaker, that is a very serious liability for any country, but it' is a tremendous liability for a young country like this, loaded, as we are, with our own internal troubles as well. Now, I want to proceed to another position: that for the payment of that liability; for the payment of that interest; for the procuring of that excessive export, you must depend largely upon your agricultural produce. Agriculture and kindred industries must carry the load. The immediate future of Canada depends to a demonstration-and I am trying to be as logical as I can-on the extent to which you promote the free production of your fields, the free production of your cattle ranches, the free production of your forest, the free production of your mines, because it is demonstrable to absolute proof that that is the way you must get the goods to pay your external liabilities.
I do not often burden the House with a large number of figures, but I want to give, in round numbers, some figures which, I think, will carry home pretty substantial proof of the position which I have just taken. I have here the figures of our total expert and al=o tht figures for the exports r f our agricultural produce,-that is, the produce of the farm and the ranch-for the last five years. If the House will allow me I will cut out the thousands and the hundreds and give the figures in millions. In 1916 the total exports of Canada amounted to $741,000,000, and the exports of the farm and the ranch were $352,000,000. Even at that time, when we were in the middle of the war and our exports were inflated by munitions, note the tremendous proportion of our exports that consisted of the produce of our agriculture alone. In 1917, our total exports were $1,151,000,000, and our total exports of agricultural produce were $501,000,000. In 1918 our total exports were $1,540,000,000, and our total export of agricultural produce, $739,000,000. In 1919 our total exports were $1,216,000,000, of which $469,000,000 were produce of the farm and the ranch. But here is the most significant figure of all: for the first nine months of the fiscal year 1920, when munitions had gone out, the total exports amounted to $941,000,000 and the produce of the farm and ranch, $545,000,000,-much more than half our entire exports. Add to that the produce of the mine, the forest and the fisheries and have I not gone far, Sir, to prove my case w'hen I state that you must depend upon the produce of your agriculture for the discharge of your foreign obligations?
We have to remember something further at this point: that the figures I have just given all apply to the war and the demobilization period, and, therefore, to a period during which there was enormous inflation of prices. There will be a decrease of prices, and we shall still have our $200,000,000 to pay in the shape of interest. What does that teach us? Surely that nothing will meet our case except an enormous increase in the volume of that very produce or otherwise we shall not be able to meet our financial liabilities as a nation. No other conclusion is derivable from the figures I have given,-and here I am talking no party politics; I am talking the best I know for the good of the nation to which we all belong and of which we are all proud. I hope that hon. gentlemen on all sides of the House will look into this matter carefully and receive my argument in the spirit in which it is given. It is an urgent national situation; yet we tax agricultural implements and place obstacles in the way of our foreign trade in the shape of a tariff wall, and a high tariff wall at that.
There is another matter to remember in this connection. The nations of Europe will get into their industrial stride, I think, faster than into their agricultural stride. In Germany and Austria you have very large Industrial skill and manufacturing ability. The war has taught us that each nation needs the co-operation of all the other nations of the world; so these nations are looking all over the world for a market in which they can place their products. They are looking to the Argentine, where there is a nominal duty only on agricultural implements,-five per cent I think- with a view to selling their manufactured products there. With what results? That ships crossing the Atlantic from these countries which are rebuilding their business will sail to South America instead of to the northern portions of North America. That is the inevitable result if we keep the duty on implements as we hav.e it and if we continue to keep up a high tariff war against international commerce.
While on this matter I recall that something has been said about key industries in the Old Country. There was for a time a belief in some quarters that the Old Country would desert her traditional free trade faith, and there was talk of some key industries,-I am not sure that my hon.

friend the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen) did not give an address to the Ottawa Board of Trade in which he mentioned that the Old Country iwas looking after her key industries. Well, it is amusing in that connection to recall that Lord Selborne's committee which sat for the purpose of finding out what was the best way of promoting the good of agriculture in the Old Country, advocated the production of all the food in Great Britain that the British people needed to eat. That was one of the findings of that agricultural committee,-and, Mr. Speaker, the Old Country could do it. If she devoted herself to agriculture of as intensive a kind as is followed in Denmark and Holland, she could produce far more food than her people require. But she has more sense. What is the use of her breaking her neck to produce wheat when she can buy far better stuff from us at a far cheaper rate, selling us in turn, her manufactured goods,-better than we can make-if we have the sense to let her? Our Canadian wheat cannot be beaten anywhere; we can sell it in exchange for the beautiful cotton goods of Lancashire, which equally cannot be beaten anywhere,-that is the way to expand your trade. But I should like to task my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), if he is touching on key industries at all, what would happen to us in Western Canada if the suggestion of Lord Selbome's committee with regard 'to what it looked upon <as the cardinal, key industry of Britain was carried out and Britain produced all the food that she required? What would the farmers of Portage la Prairie and Bed Heer think of that state of affairs? It would be rather awkward; we should lose tall our market. I mention this just as an illustration of what, after all, appears to be the silliness of protection.
I have very much pleasure in agreeing with many of the praises bestowed on my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). I think he did an extremely brave and wise thing, and the ohly defensible thing, when he put the actual condition of the finances of the country before the people and Parliament. The removal of the seven and a half per cent duty was good as far as it went. The ees-tsation of borrowing is an absolute necessity for the good of the State. Economy, which he promises to practise-in that he will have difficulty with some of his colleagues -is all important. Just on that head I may observe that there are two ways of improving a bad financial position, whether

it be on the part of the individual or on the part of the State. You *can raise more income. That will improve your condition, but that is a much safer thing than in the case of an individual than in the case of a State. As regards some ministries, I do not think it is Safe for them to have too big incomes, as they are custodians of the people's money-and that is true in the case of this Ministry. There are also some human beings who would be better off if they had less to spend. Still, I would, on the whole, rather trust an individual than the Government of any country with a big income. It is better for Governments if they have just sufficient income to carry on, except of course, when they have a large debt to take care of, as is the case in Canada at the present time, and I do not think we are at present in a position to form a sinking fund for the extinction of our debt. One wajr to Teduce the. debt of a State is to raise more income, but a far more salutory method is to spend less, and the latter operation is a vitally important step in what is all important as regards the finances of this country at the present moment. That is, a determined effort should be made to bring our daily expenditure within the limits of our daily income, and as far as I can see there is plenty of room for this Government to make large strides along the road of public economy, which Cobden describes as public virtue.
Like the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Turgeon), I listened very carefully to the most important and startling speech made the other day by the hon. member for Guysborough and Antigonish (Mr. J. H. Sinclair), in a small House, there being certainly not more than two ministers and very few members on the Government side present. I venture to take what is perhaps an unusual parliamentary course of procedure in quoting three of the statements that my hon. friend made in that speech. He stated on his authority-and he is a pretty careful man-that in a volume recently issued of the Auditor General's Be-port there was an item of $119,000,000 which was unaccounted for. The minister does not know where that money has gone; the deputy minister does not know where it has gone, and the Auditor General has it marked down "unaccounted for." That is a very startling statement. My hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) further stated that on four or five pages of the same volume of the Auditor General's Beport there are twenty-four cases of individuals whose names are mentioned, going to some department or

subdepartment or another-we have so many of these things that you do not know where you end-and getting sums ranging from $100 to, I think, $220 right into their hands and those sums are marked down in this volume of the Auditor General's Eeport as "unaccounted for." The name of the individual getting the sum, $100, $150, $200, of public money is printed right in the report, and no account is given of what was done with this money. Some economies could surely be effected in that direction, I am not stating these opinions on my authority; I am quoting from the speech of my hon. friend, and I hope whoever replies to me will give some information as to where this money has gone.
My hon. friend further stated that, according to a return issued about the beginning of this session, the Civil Service Commission had appointed fifty civil servants every day from the date of the Armistice to the date of the issue of that return. I give these statements for what they are worth. They were apparently not worth very much to the Ministry, because not even a private member was put up to reply to my hon. friend, and the hon. member for Gloucester seemed astonished at that. The only explanation I can offer is that, when statements of that seriousness as regards the expenditure of public money are made in this House and no reply is forthcoming from the ministerial benches, I am bound to remind myself that the nearer an autocracy gets to its doom, the more autocratic it becomes.
Without going into the past, there is plenty of room for warning as regards economy in public expenditures. I have told the Government again and again of instances where they could save money and of things they went into that they should never have gone .into, and I wish to issue a warning now. The other day in a copy of, I think, a Canadian illustrated magazine, courteously sent to me, I read very carefully an article entitled the " Case for Shipping Subsidies."
I wanted to see what the case was because I had not been able to see it on my own account, neither did I find it in the article. What do you think, Mr. Speaker, the writer gave as an argument in favour of granting shipping subsidies? These are temptations that come to Governments, especially amateur members of Governments-I mean politically amateur-and they are supported by arguments of this kind. The writer of the article favouring shipping subsidies 170
said that Great Britain could build ships 50 per cent more cheaply as regards labour than Canada could, and further, that she turns out 15 per cent more finished work in a given period of time. Mark that, Mr. Speaker. Nevertheless, we have in this country a Government that expect they can embark with success in a shipping industry. I am dumbfounded that they should ever think so. Who, in his private life, would want to embark to any great extent in a business in competition with another person who could employ labour half as cheaply and get 15 per cent more done by that more lowly paid labour in any given period of time? As regards shipping, 1 noticed the other day in a leading article in The Times, the statement made that there are on the seas to-day 4,000,000 tons of shipping more than there were just before the war. The amount of tonnage is increasing every day; the United 'States, for instance, are very busy constructing ships. I throw out these facts and arguments with, in addition, the confident statement that freight rates must in a very short period come down, against any temptations that are held out to the Government in the way of granting shipping subsidies.
I should now like to say something about the new taxes. I was wondering this forenoon what Bernard Shaw would say if he were to come to Ottawa. Without coming to Ottawa, he said the other day that it looked as if the other planets were, at the moment, using this planet for a lunatic asylum. I imagine him coming to Ottawa and emerging from the central station on to the plaza. The first thing he would see would be that on the railway buildings the time would be, say two o'clock and on the Government buildings, three o'clock-the time arranged on the one hand by the railways and on the other by the municipality, with the Government concurring in the action of the municipality. Last year, the Government took a hand in the matter and were eventually beaten out by the railway companies. I will not dwell on that further than to remark that this is a funny country. Mr. Bernard Shaw comes up to the Parliament Hill and he finds that we are seriously discussing a bad system of taxation which died out on the other side some two centuries ago, and I am sure he will be confirmed in his opinion that this planet is being used for the purpose which he has described. In the first place, these taxes should be rechristened. They are called " excise " duties, and I appeal to the min-



ister in this connection. By the way, very little that I say in the way of criticism applies to the minister personally. He has newly come into the Government; he has hardly found his feet amongst them, and I have no doubt he did not have anything like full responsibility for these taxes. If he did, if he has done all this off his own bat, he has preferred a tremendous indictment against the Government of which he is a member, because if these taxes are good, if they are defensible, and are going to raise us $100,000,000 a year, they should have been put on six years ago at the beginning of the war-$600,000,000 from this source would be a very tangible reduction of the national debt we are now labouring under. I should like the Government and Parliament and the people of this country to consider that; if these are good taxes, if they are defensible, they should have been put on six years ago. As I say, if my hon. friend is wholly responsible for these taxes he has got the Government into frightful hot water in regard to the operations they undertook before they had the benefit of his services.
I return to the point that these are not "excise" duties at all. I very much question if there ever were any such duties imposed in the world. I said that they were a bad imitation of what used to go under the name of excise duties on commodities in Great Britain. In 1643, nearly four hundred years ago,- just about a suitable period for a really Tory government to go back for its precedents - there were duties somethinglike these on goods brought from Holland into England, but I doubt if they were placed direct on the consumer. I do not think they were. They were collected in bulk, just as excise duties are now in England. Beal excise duties, such as those on spirits, for example, are not collected from the consumer. If a man wants a glass of whisky he is not asked to pull an extra cent out of his pocket. They would not undertake a ridiculous procedure of that kind-a man would not have time for it late at night. I is recorded of these duties in England, however they were collected that they were most unpopular, and I dare say that the Government individually and collectively have already had evidence that their taxes are not likely to be much more popular here. Their unpopularity was very well shown by Dr. Johnson, a good old English Tory, who described them as "a hateful tax levied upon commodiites and are judged not by the common judges of property but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." I repeat that these 
duties are not excise duties as the word is understood. An excise duty has had a precise meaning for at least a century of time.
I have fortified myself with authority on this question. Webster in his dictionary says that an excise duty is:
An inland duty or impost laid on articles produced and consumed in a country.
That is an excise duty. It has always been placed on a home produced article, and it is not placed on the consumer. It is placed to save the consumer from being taxed more than he should be. It is placed so that the Government gets the excise duty in lieu of the tariff which is placed on the article coming in from abroad. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines an excise duty as:
A duty charged on home goods, either in the process of their manufacture or before their sale to home consumers.
The tax is placed before the article is sold to the consumer, to protect the consumer. But there is no question of home goods in these taxes. If one goes to buy any of the goods in these almost wholesale lines which are in the schedule at the end of the Budget Speech, he will not be asked whether this article came from abroad or was produced in Canada. All he will be asked, under these proposals, when he buys a $50 suit of clothes is whether he has an extra $5, and if he does not have it I presume he cannot get the clothes. That ds all he is asked. He is not told where the suit came from. He is simply taxed $5, and has that $5 taken from him. It is a ease of catching a man buying in these many lines of goods and fining him for a legitimate operation between him and his neighbour. It is not an excise duity at all. It is an arbitrary proceeding. One should not in the main debate on this subject dwell on details and anomalies, because if the Budget carries on the second reading- and I suppose it will, because a government that is supported by a majority under certain conditions can get almost anything. In this House anyhow, we have had examples of that. We supported daylight saving by a huge majority one year and killed it the next year wiith just as big a majority, and nobody paid much attention to either of our operations-I suppose the Budget will be carried, but there are some terrible anomalies in the thing. The fact of the matter is that it is a totally arbitrary method of taxation, and there is no principle as to the incidence Off the tax. If a man goes to buy a $20 suit of clothes he

is not taxed at all. If a returned soldier who, after all, hae as much right as anybody else to wear a respectable suit on Sunday, goes to buy a $50 suit of clothes and he just has the extra $5 necessary to give to the Government, he pays his $55. The millionaire goes and gete his $150 suit, and I suppose he will pay $15 in taxes. If I were a millionaire I would pay the tax very cheerfully under those conditions, but I am not so sure about the returned soldier or the working man who just manages to scrape together $55. There is no equality or decency in the incidence of a tax of that kind. It is wholly indefensible, and I am not sure that anything like it has been done in history, until something like it was done in the United States, and t-he department sent some all-sufficient individual down there for five minutes to look at the thing and he said, "This is the pure cheese." This is another piece of imitation the Government are giving us, if this is an excise duty, but I think I have proved it is not.
What is it? In some respects you might say it is a levy on capital. That has been talked of on both sides of the water as a method of raising money to meet war obligations, but I do not think anybody with preciseness in his make up would want to define this as a levy on capital, and I am sure no supporter 0f the Government would because, if it is a levy on capital, it is in many cases not a levy on the capitalist. The levy on capital I want is the levy on the capitalist, the man who has some capital worth levying on. So I think we may dismiss that. Then what is it? We have to classify this thing. It is a new species in the fiscal zoological garden and we have to classify and describe it. If it is not an excise duty, and not a levy on capital, what is it? What does it bear most resemblance to? When a taxable article is brought into this country we place a Dominion officer at the port in buttons and blue coat and pay him a salary and he collects the money. That is a tariff against external goods, and, as I hold, against external trade. But in the case of the duties on all these lines of goods you do not have an officer to do your business. You do not pay him to give a license to the buyer even to do the collecting for you. But thiatt does not alter the rule. This is an internal tariff and it will have, and it is having to-day

and it'ls a splendid object lesson from that point of view-exactly tthe effect which an external tariff has on the commerce and life of a nation.
That leads me to an enumeration of objections which I think are cardinal and insuperable to this form of taxation. As this is an internal tariff, and it cannot be defined in any other way, my first objection to this whole line of taxation is that it is practically an enormous increase of the tariff on whole lines of articles by a government that in the same breath is promising revision of the tariff, presumably downwards. That is my first real objection to this taxation. My first general objection, of course, I have already dealt with; that there is nothing like it in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. But my first real objection to this taxation is that it is a huge boost of the tariff in the case of long lists of articles in some cases by ten per cent, in others by twenty per cent, in others by thirty per cent, and in others by fifty per cent. It is a huge boost of the tariff. It is nothing else, and cannot be otherwise described, and the mischief of it is that in many cases the Government have boosted things thirty per cent which they should have boosted only ten, and in other cases have boosted only ten when they Should have boosted thirty per cent. There is a tax of ten per cent on candies, for example. Well, I am told that young people who go to dance halls in large numbers in this and other cities throughout the country eat a lot of candy, and a young fellow never thinks he does properly by his girl unless he gives her a $2 box. If you wanted to tax luxuries, I would have put that young fellow in the thirty per cent class. Keep him at home more nights in the week; there would be lees money spent on candies, and it would' make more ,for the good of the community. But the Government encourage that kind of thing. Then they put a thirty per cent tax on Pain Killer. I have no brief for patent medicines, bust Pain Killer has been used for so long as a workingman's medicine that I think there must be something useful in it, and I would put it in the ten per cent cl'ass. But these things we can thresh out in Committee, if we'ever get there, and I have hopes.
My next objection to the tax is that it will be complex and difficult of collection. Another objection to the tax is that it will inevitably lessen business. That is too true, Sir. This tax will lessen business; it will diminish the prosperity, the trade and the accumulation of wealth in the country at a time when we never needed so much to accumulate wealth as we do

now. It must do that, and it is exactly what its twin brother at the sea coast does all the time. That is the value of this thing, and that is the value of our study of it in regard to the trade of the country. This internal tariff was not imposed three days till individuals all over Ottawa were going to the stores and cancelling orders. That is a fact that cannot be gainsaid. On the way to this House I met a gentleman in whose word I have implicit confidence, and he told me that one firm in a large line of articles, had lost $400 in trade that had been cancelled, and the reason is obvious. The cost of living is so high, that when a man who has made up his mind to buy a carpet for $150 finds $30 or $40 added to the price he determines to do without it and trade is lost to that extent. He wants a carpet, but he calculates that he cannot afford more than a certain amount, and when a large sum is added to the price which he contemplated paying for the article he prefers to do without it. I have met a great many individuals who have told me of their having cancelled orders.
I may say that the same thing is true in Tegard to myself. I am a poor man and I have made up my mind to deny myself the extra suit which I had intended getting and to go this summer wearing overalls and duck shirts. The Government, I have no doubt, will take enough interest in me personally to congratulate me on that, because they say they are teachers of economy. But they reverse the rule. They have no right to teach me economy in my personal capacity. They have no right whatever to do that; indeed, there are far too many schoolmasters in the country. But I have every right in my capacity as a citizen to inculcate economy on the Government, because it is the money of the public which the Government are taking care of. Let me say, Sir, that there are limits to this practice of teaching individuals economy. Now, if it be a fact that you cancel orders in stores on articles of necessity, what is the effect? The store where orders are cancelled will be dismissing a hand before you know where you are; and to go further back, the factories will be employing fewer workers. What effect will that have on agricultural production? The people will not have money to buy agricultural produce, you will lessen trade, and you will hasten that stagnation which is bound to come before we are much older, according to all the men who know anything about trade conditions. I desire to revert for a moment to the question of [Mr. M. Clarlc.l
economy on the part of individuals. When I spoke on the Address I said I doubted very much the soundness of the doctrine that individuals should be exhorted to economize in order to help the State at this time. What a man does with his own money, so long as he does not do anything that is not within the law, is no business of anybody's. It was my privilege at one period of my life to enjoy from time to time brief private conversations with one of the greatest men in the Empire to-day, Lord Morley, then John Morley, the member for Newcastle; and having a good deal of Scotch training in regard to the value of "thrupence." I remember saying to Mr. Morley: "There is a passage in one of your essays which I have been reading lately that rather puzzled me. You refer to the cant of having few wants." He said: "Well,
I cannot at all recall having written such a passage, but it is just what I would have written; don't you think that it is the part of a high civilization for every one to have lots of private wants and to be able to supply them in a legitimate way?" I confess I could not reply to him; I thought he defended very well his criticism of that old doctrine of having few wants. But that same gentleman would have been the first to come in and preach, as I have often heard him preach on public platforms, that the duty of the Government is to economize because they are taking care of the money of the public. They are the nations' housekeepers, and as a matter of public uprightness and governmental righteousness it is incumbent upon them to take the best possible care of the peoples' money.
These taxes, therefore, I repeat, will be complex and difficult to collect. They will lessen business; they are lessening business at the present time. Furthermore, they will increase the cost of living in very many respects; there is no doubt about that. So far as the cost of any given article is concerned, they increase the cost of living at the point of the revolver. You go into a store and you are told that you have to produce $5 extra on a suit of clothes costing $50; otherwise you cannot do any business. That is increasing the cost of living with a vengeance, and yet we are all saying that it is our primary duty, in order to alleviate the unrest which exists in the country today, to decrease the cost of living as far as we possibly can. We all say that our object should be to lower the cost of living, but the intelligent rows of hon. gentlemen opposite me, who have been working their

brains to see how the cost of living is to be reduced, are going to vote for the principle of a Budget which, on the whole line of absolute necessaries, will increase the cost of living in the most crude and arbitrary manner. The use of that word " crude " in this connection reminds' me of a quotation which I am tempted to make, confining its application, however, strictly to the Government. Adam Smith says somewhere that the methods of taxation employed by primitive peoples are generally crude. I will not insult the Canadian people by making them, through all their representatives, responsible for a taxation to which that statement can be applied. I restrict the quotation entirely to the Government. They are a primitive Government, in regard to their taxation at any rate.
The Budget, in the way I have pointed out, increases the cost of living at a time when large numbers of people, with every means of economy which they can devise, are unable to make ends meet. It burdens those who are already burdened to the point of back-breaking, and in that respect I want to say that I except the class to whom I belong. The farmer is not the worst hit by this thing; he can avoid it by wearing overalls and duck shirts. He raises his own food and lives on the land, and therefore I exempt the farmer class from those who are hardest hit. I have said here before, and I repeat, that one of the defects of the Finance Department of this Government during the term of the war has been that it did not get enough out of the farmers when they were making money. We are always being asked "Where can we get more revenue?" If the Government had done a reasonable amount of thinking, or consulted those who were doing the thinking, they could have been told a dozen ways to get revenue. But this taxation does hit the city working man, and rwhat is worse, it hits the veteran. That as who it hits, and that moves me to the special condemnation-the damning charge ogainst this line of taxation is that under it war wealth is left untaxed in any special (way, and the profiteers and the millionaires are left practically intact, while you are striking at the men who saved their country and the men who* work in the factories With their hands for a daily living. Now these are the Characteristics of this^ taxation as I see it. Some of the statements I have made about it no one can controvert, it is impossible to do so; and yet my hon. friend, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster),
claims for the Minister of Finance the quality of courage for putting on this taxation, well, Mr. Speaker, I can only say in regard to that, that you mistake foolhardiness for courage. However, I am (willing to waive the point and give my hon. friend the characteristic of courage. He certainly has courage. Any one who becomes responsible for that taxation, whatever other qualities he has, has courage, but I want to say that the members of the Government do not share that characteristic with him.
Now my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce made a most interesting speech on the evening No:f the day the Budget was presented. He also said "You isee we are coming to Idirect taxation." I was charmed to hear him. I had been urging that for years and (been looked upon as a fanatic for my pains; (but here is the most experienced politician in the House *-I would not be far wrong if I said the ablest debater in Canada-a man of unexampled parliamentary experience, a man who must be nearer the end of his days than the beginning, who actually says what I have been saying for years-and yet I maintain a reasonable degree ol modesty. Of course there is this difference between my hon. friend and myself; he says we must arrive at this very gradually. Gradually we are coming to direct taxation ! Well the gradualness of the process was remarkable to behold. We met for the" first war session in August, 1914, and 1 ventured to say something about income tax then. The Government raised the duties on sugar and coffee. They would not put an income tax on-"Oh, no," they said "You cannot collect income tax in this country." And income tax went by for 1914. Of course my right hon. friend (Sir George Foster) believes in a gradual approach to direct taxation. The year 1915 came; the first real war session. Burden on the consumer but no income tax! The year 1915 witnessed a flat raise of taxation all around. More burdens for the common people, further protection for the millionaire and the rich man,- no income tax! The year 1916 came. All blank, no income tax, no foresight! All blank, not a cent! The year 1917 came. Then came the foresight. An income tax came along and the thing that could not be collected was collected, and we have been collecting a little more ever since. I give the Government and the Minister of Finance full credit for any raise he has made in the income tax, but it is a very,

and I do not know how in the world the hon. the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) was ever got to swallow this Budget, because he once believed the same about the tariff that I do. What influence has been brought to bear upon him, or how he has been mesmerized I cannot tell because in the general course of his human intercourse he has more often been the mesmerizer than the mesmerized. On this occasion he has been mesmerized; he must have been. I wonder if it is not too late for him to mend? How well that huge brain would look on the cross benches. I would very much like him to pay attention to what I say; to give serious consideration to my modest and humble invitation.
And what about my friend from Neepawa (Mr. Davis) and my hon. and gallant friend from Skeena (Mr. Peck), whom I see before me? And there are others,-my hon. friend from Strathcona (Mr. J. M. Douglas) and my very much respected and valued friend from Lethbridge (Mr. Buchanan)-are these gentlemen all going to vote for a diminution of the prosperity, the wealth and the trade of the country and for an increase of its tariff and its cost of living? Well, human nature is a funny thing; you cannot tell what it is capable of. I shall watch the operation of their voting with the very greatest interest. As for us, there is no doubt about where we stand.
We are against the Budget. We think the amendment is a little milk and watery. Our policy on the tariff is the tariff policy of the Dominion Council of Agriculture. If we were against the principle of the amendment I do not think we were made to think very much more of it by the speech in which it was introduced by the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). I do not want to say a single word in criticism of that speech; I would only repeat one single sentence of criticism that was passed upon it by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster). The right hon. gentleman said: " I was very much pleased with the speech of my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's. When my right hon. friend (Sir George Foster) says that about any speech of mine on tariff matters I shall have my head examined by a doctor. I think that is the most effective piece of criticism in one sentence that was ever passed upon a speech in this House. When my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce stands up and says to the Opposition's financial critic, " I was very much pleased with your speech," the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), ought to know very

well that he has, fiscally speaking, gone to the devil.
Now, I am having a little crow to pack with the Official Opposition. My hon. friend from Beauce (Mr. Beland) whose attractive personality makes him an object of the love of every one in this Chamber, went down to a by-election in Montreal, and he said, in so many words: "I am in favour of a well-regulated protection of Canadian industry." Well, he is no good for the cross benches; I may tell him that out of hand; there is no place for him here. But he can line up 'splendidly with the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen) who went out to Winnipeg and said that he believed in a moderate tariff. " Well-regulated protection" and "moderate tariff" are very close to one another. For the life of me I do not see why the Minister of the Interior and my hon. friend from Beauce should not be absolutely in the sajme camp on tariff matters. Would Sir Wilfrid Laurier have said that he was in favour of protection? Never; the word never came from his lips except by way of condemnation. There has been a retrograde metamorphism upon the part of some members of the Official Opposition. If my hon. friend from Brome (Mr. McMaster) had been in his place I would have tried to do a little Borneo business on my own account- this Romeo businesis is getting popular in tariff matters. I have done the best I could with the Minister of Immigration, but he ds leaving the Chamber now; he is a very coy and unapproachable spinster.
I would like also to address a word to my hon. friend from Victoria, Alta, (Mr. W. H. White), for whom I have as much respect as for any member in this House, and who is. to my knowledge, almost a free trader. And my hon. friend from East Quebec (Mr. Lapointe) will never say that he is a protectionist. I really would like hon. gentlemen on both sides to consider where they are going to get by these mixed up rations. There is my hon. friend from Russell (Mr. Murphy), the ex-Secretary of State. He has very broad and advanced views on the fiscal question; he would never describe himself as a protectionist.


Mr. MURPHY:: Hear, hear.


Michael Clark: Why not come
along and stretch out our number on these benches a bit? Bring the others along, too, and let the Progressive party get the majority and choose the best man from among them to be Prime Minister. I will not tell you who that Piime Minister would be; I hold out no bribes to the Official Opposition.

Contrast these statements. My hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's says that under certain circumstances bounties would be all right. He says:	"I hold up
my hand, theoretically, for free trade." Yes, and he would be prepared to hold out his hands for the bounties; that is the trouble. And my hon. friend from Beauee says: " I am in favour of a well-regulated protection of Canadian industry." I am going to give some quotations now, very brief, not for the purpose of recrimination; not to say whether the Liberal party did or did not do its duty, but to state the progressive fiscal policy that I have believed in all my life, and to give it as affirmed by a man who, being dead, still speaketh. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said before 1896:
I submit to you that the ideal fiscal system is the British system of free trade.
I come to expose to you the policy of the Liberal party. Let me tell you that the policy may he summed up in the good Saxon word " Freedom," in every sense of the term-freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of religious life and civil life, and last, not least, freedom in commercial life.
I denounce to you the policy of protection as bondage; yes, bondage, and I refer to bondage in the same manner as American slavery was bondage; not in the same degree, perhaps, but in the same manner. In the same manner the people of this country, the inhabitants of the city of Winnipeg especially, are toiling for a master, who takes away, not every cent of profit, but a very large percentage, a very great portion of your earnings for which you toil and sweat.
That was sound doctrine, Mr. Speaker, when those sentences were uttered by the voice that is stilled forever so far as this scene is concerned, and it is as profoundly true and more applicable to-day. I am here to claim for the little group by whom we are surrounded that we inherit that doctrine. We are the inheritors of that creed. We come by it honourably. We followed and believed Sir Wilfrid Laurier then, and we follow his teachings now.


Mr. HAY:: What is the date of that
speech, please?


Michael Clark: These utterances were made either at the 1893 convention, or in speeches immediately preceding. I do not know what that has to do with the matter in hand; the doctrine, not the date, is what matters, as my hon. friend will probably find when he goes to his western constituency.
I was saying that we believe that doctrine is as true to-day as it was at that time. We believe protection is economic bondage. Sixty thousand of the brightest.
best and bravest of Canada's sons are lying in France and Flanders to-day because they were prepared to die to accomplish the political freedom of the inhabitants of Europe. Any man deceives himself who thinks that their survivors, and the workingmen, farmers and women of this country, who stood behind them in the fight, are going to submit any further to economic slavery in Canada. It is substantially true that from Confederation to the present day Canada and her people have been owned by a few manufacturers, a few railroad magnates, and a few lumbermen, and we all know that. But the war has changed all that, and an army of emancipation is on the march. The sound of it may be yet as distant thunder, but it is getting nearer every day. The farmers are in that army; the workingmen are in it; the veterans are in it; the women are in it; the best journalistic heads in Canada are in it; men of goodwill of all ranks and classes are in it, and it is marching. We are its outposts for construction purposes. When that army arrives, it will say to all and sundry, whether they be Conservative-Liberals or Liberal-Conservatives:	We have come to
enter into the inheritance which our sons and brothers died to purchase; we have come to free our beloved land from economic slavery; we have come to put Canada where she belongs in the forefront of the battle of the free and democratic peoples of mankind.


Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Minister of the Interior):: Mr. Speaker, much as I admire the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) and, indeed, envy many of his gifts as a public stpeaker, I cannot say that I stand altogether appalled at the task of answering his arguments this afternoon. The hon. member has given us an example of the maximum of merit that a speech may reach, without the ingredient of logic and without the assistance of facts. There were, incidentally, as he proceeded, matters that emerged as to which I do not feel myself in possession of all the details and circumstances to enable me to reply. He made mention of certain items in the Auditor General's Report that were marked in that report "unaccounted for," and large items they were. These were referred to first by the hon. member for Guysborough and Antigonish (Mr. J. H. Sinclair). I was not in my place at that time; but I would presume that the items were British or foreign credits, the accounting for which had not yet reached the Auditor General.

and that consequently they appeared in the report in that form. But the hon. member for Guysborough, or the hon. member for Red Deer, knows that if there is anything he does not understand in the Report of the Auditor General, there is a standing committee of this House for the purpose of investigating every item questioned, and although we have been in session three months, that committee has never been called. If there be any reason for calling it, hon. members have it in their power to have it called, and if there be anything dark it will be revealed.
My hon. friend rather surprised me this, afternoon by a prolonged and violent attack on what is described as the "luxury tax" of the Budget. He says that this is only a case of more tariff, 10 per cent upon sales of articles of special value; that is upon luxuries so far as luxuries can be isolated and designated by name. All these things, he says, are only additions to the tariff and cannot even enjoy the good name thlat belongs to an excise tax; there is nothing right about them; they are too big and they are too small; they came too soon and they came too late; everything that he can think of in connection with the luxury tax is wrong. He says: If this were an excise tax, it would be all right, because an excise tax is on home manufactures alone. Well, an excise tax is on home manufactures alone but there is always a corresponding duty against the import of .the same goods, and this is exactly the same thing. There is here a tax on the goods produced in Canada, there is a tax on imported goods-there is the corresponding one to offset the other. If the hon. gentleman would haye us pay ten per cent extra for a suit of clothes if it were made in Canada and nothing at all extra if it were imported from the United States, do you think, Mr. Speaker, many more suits of clothes would be made in this country? But that is the character of tax my hon. friend (Mr. Clark) says he would support. I would be sorry for the country that ever took the hon. member for Red Deer as its business mentor. My hon. friend says that we know where his political associates stand. I do not know where they stand.


Mr. COWAN:: Nor anybody else.


Arthur Meighen: His leader (Mr. Crerar), who sits to his right, was down in New Biunswick not long ago and he told the people of that province that he was against the tariff and that he wranted to raise revenue by a luxury tax. With the leader arguing in favour of a luxury tax and his

first lieutenant opposing it, how are we supposed to know where they stand?


Mr. CRERAR:: Does the minister consider a $45 suit of clothes a luxury?


Arthur Meighen: If a $45 suit of clothes is not a luxury, then we have a pretty prosperous country.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.


Arthur Meighen: It may be that the limit on certain articles is too low, but does that affect the principle? Would the argument of the hon. member for Red Deer not be just the same against a tax on a $100 or a $150 suit of clothes or against anything in the whole range of the luxury tax? He did not oppose any item in the tax; he opposed the tax on principle, and his leader supports the tax on principle. How then are we to know where they stand? The hon. member for Red Deer says that this tax will add to the cost of .living. The reports that have so far come to hand-and they have come direct from dealers in these articles-are to the effect that the tendency has been to bring down the sale price below the limits of the luxury tax. That tendency is in operation and effect.


Michael Clark: Where does the revenue come from then?


Arthur Meighen: If we do not get the revenue, no harm is done, and my hon. friend would not oppose the tax; at all events, his objection is gone and we get the economy. Does the hon. member not know that in this country, no matter who should do the teaching, we should have less extravagance and more economy? Will he not admit that?


Michael Clark: On the part of *the Government, certainly.


Arthur Meighen: Will he not admit that that is necessary on the part of the people? He is silent; lie knows he has to admit that. He knows the country stands to gain by a diminution of extravagance, by an increase in economy on the part of every individual. If that be the case, how' is it wrong on the part of the Government so to arrange its taxation so as to encourage that result.


Michael Clark: My hon. friend is putting into my mouth words which are absolutely contradictory to what I said. I said that the State has not much to do with an individual's expenditure so long as he spends his own money. If my hon. friend was listening he could not help hearing what I said.


Arthur Meighen: I know he said that, but I am arguing that he is wrong. If it is in the interests of this Dominion that we have less personal extravagance and more economy why is it wrong on the part of the Government so to arrange its legislation as to aim at that end? The hon. member is silent. I knew he would get silent just at the opportune time.
After getting $81,000,000 by direct taxation, here is a Budget that by a luxury tax and other means seeks to raise $100,000,000 more by direct taxation. That is $181,000,000 by direct taxation, and the hon. member opposes this Budget because there is a luxury tax.
He says he wants more income tax, and presented a rather prolonged argument along that line. He made some strictures on the Administration, strictures that are so commonplace and which have been so often exploded as to come better at this time from a member not quite so intelligent as my hon. friend from Red Deer-strictures on the Administration of saving and sheltering the millionaire and taxing the poor man, and he asks us to follow Britain's example in income taxation. Is he aware that as respects the men of higher income in Great Britain, the tax in Canada to-day is higher on them than is the British income tax?


Michael Clark: I shall not accept that statement until proved by exact figures taking into account the super-tax.


Arthur Meighen: I will provide the hon. gentleman with the figures and they will show that beyond incomes of about $200,000 a year, as near as I remember-and I shall have time to get the figures-the tax in Canada exceeds the British tax and has done so for a year, and now we are adding five per cent more to it. We have been on a level with the United States for the last year, and we are now increasing over them by five per cent. The hon. member does not like following the United States in that regard. Well, it is not for the sake of following them that we do it. It is for the sake of seeking to collect the largest revenue we can. We are alongside the United States whether we like it or not. We are a people of eight or nine millions alongside for 4,000 miles a people of one hundred millions. There is no barrier between, no wall there. Capital is mobile, and as soon as you reach the point where it pays capital to go there instead of here, the tendency is likely to be for it to go there, and as soon as you reach the point where it pays capital to stay there instead of coming here, we are not likely to get much capital. It is not
that we love their example. It may be all right or it may not. It is because conditions compel us in the interests of Canada to have regard to the level of income taxation that prevails in that country.
The hon. member also talks about New Zealand. Certainly New Zealand has a heavy income tax. New Zealand has had an income tax for twenty or twenty-five years. We have had an income tax for only three or four years. We were not in office twenty or twenty-five years ago, but some of the hon. member's friends were. I might point out that after New Zealand had had an income tax for ten years they were collecting less than a million dollars a year. New Zealand to-day collects a heavy income tax, but they do not collect any profits tax or any corporation tax. They do not collect any of these other direct taxes that are imposed so heavily in this country. New Zealand is not a manufacturing country, but they have so managed their affairs, (much to the delight of the hon. member for Red Deer) that they have to-day reached the point where they have a debt per capita three or four times as great as has Canada. We will reach their point in income taxation at the rate of increase at which we are proceeding, just as soon perhaps as the most ardent income-taxer in this country may desire, and we are a lot closer to them now than the hon. member for Red Deer would give us to understand. If he adds to our income tax our direct taxes, which are not imposed in New Zealand, and that is the only fair way to compare, we are up now to about half of the New Zealand tax per capita, and when he gets the tax of next year, which is a direct tax too, though not of the nature of income taxation in the same way as the corporation and the profits taxes are, the hon. member will have as much direct taxation as will make him as a public man comfortable in any constituency in this country.
My hon. friend devoted a considerable portion of his speech, although less than formerly, to a disquisition on the proper tariff policy for Canada. I purpose following him with some care into a discussion of that subject. The tariff issue has been again forced to the front in public discussion in Canada, and is likely to be there for some time to come. We Lave two wings of the opposing party, one represented by the hon. member for Red Deer and the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), and the other represented by those who, opposite, follow I presume, the leader of the

party, at all events follow one of the triumvirate which has shared leadership within itself for the last several months.
As regards the group angularly opposite, the principle that they expound is clearly known. They stand, as the hon. member (Mr. Clark) says, where Sir Wilfrid Laurier stood previous to 1896. I do not think there is any doubt that that is an accurate description of where they stand. They denounce the principle of protection. They denounce all tariffs. They believe that tariffs themselves are a curse, and argue that we should follow instead the example of England and abolish the protective tariff altogether and the " tariff tax ", as the hon. member puts it, practically altogether too.
As regards those directly opposite, I am afraid it would be with a smile that they would read the enunciation of the doctrine of Sir Wilfrid Laurier previous to 1896. I watched them as I heard it read this afternoon. There was no clapping of hands, no rejoicing. It brought back to them memories not quite so pleasant as those that fluttered through the mind of the hon. member for Red Deer.
We are opposed by two wings of wholly opposite views, two wings, however, that gather around the motion of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), two -wings that hope to go before the people of this country fighting under two flags and under two leaders, to make the pretence all the better, and who hope afterwards to coalesce and entwine the two flags in one in an infamous unity, who hope after taking one camp of public opinion behind them and the opposite camp as well, to the utmost of their power to end up by deceiving both, by betraying both, because they must either deceive the one or doubly deceive the other.
The hon. member for Red Deer points as he has done for ten years in this House, to the example of his native land. If I direct my attention chiefly to the hon. member for Red Deer, it is not that I feel that he is the embodiment or the head of this manoeuvring that is going on and that he is using his great ability as a platform speaker for its own ends. It is rather because he presents the case as an argument on principle. He has placed before us everything that can be said for his cause, and I believe he has placed it before us sincerely. He is a man who has shown his true worth as a citizen, he has shown that he possesses the realities of patriotism, and for him as a man I have the profoundest respect.
[Mr. Meighen.)
Coming to the issue that is now before this House in its naked form, I want to discuss whether we should be led by the example of England as depicted by the hon. member for Red Deer, or whether we should not rather have regard to the experience of Canada, to the experience of the United States, which of all countries, is most like us, to the experience of every advanced nation in the world, and particularly to the actual and true experience of the United Kingdom itself. He tells us, as he has fiequently told us, that the United Kingdom is exceedingly prosperous, that it has been given its position of supremacy by a policy of free imports, that it is an example to the outside world, that its trade has advanced all through these years. In that, in some degree, he is correct. He has told us this afternoon that we in Canada must sell more goods than we buy; that it is the only way we can discharge our outside obligations, and he says that we must sell more than we buy to the extent annually of at least $200,000,000 a year. While I am free to admit that British trade has advanced in the last 10 years British trade shows certain features since free trade became	the	vogue	over	therethat utterly discredit it as a policy for this or any other country that seeks to sell more goods than it buys. And it must be remembered as	well	that	while	therehas been absolute advance, there has as compared	with	great	rival	countries been a melancholy relative decline. Aggregate trade is one thing, but aggregate trade in itself means very little. It is comparative trade figures that tell the tale; it is also the nature of the trade that counts. I do not know that any country is better off -in fact, I know it is far worse off-that buys, as the United States bought for many years, the whole of its tin plate, thereby adding to its import and its aggregate trade. It would seem to me that the United States was better off "when it set about revising its tariff and so improved it that later on, in 1913, according to the figures given by the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) in a speech pregnant with illuminating facts that go to the hearlt of this question, it made at home two billion pounds of tin plate in a year. The United States were importing 680,000,000 pounds of tin plate in 1890. This added to their aggregate trade, it is true, and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) *would possibly think that was a glorious achievement. But they set about changing their policy, and instead of importing
680.000.	000 pounds and making only 2,000,000 pounds ait home, they imported 28,000,000 pounds and finally were making
2.000.	000.000 pounds in their own country.
Now, coming to Great Britain, the remarkable fact about the position of that country to-day-and they know it over there just as well as we know it and regret it more keenly than we do-is, that while they have an aggregate trade which I think is second in the world, (being next to that of the United States of America), they are selling in the world to-day something over $3,000,000,000 worth of goods and are buying over $7,000,000,000 worth. They are buying at the present rate almost $2 for every $1 they sell, and that is directly the consequence of the trade policy they have pursued. The United States, on the contrary, with a bigger aggregate trade, is selling $8,000,000,000 worth (round numbers) and is buying only $3,000,000,000 odd, a balance in their favour of goods sold over goods bought-and surely that is what counts-of over $4,000,000,000 annually. Such was the balance in their favour in the year 1919. It was. almost that in 1918, almost that in 1917, and back to the year 1893, you cannot find a year in American history in which they have not sold more than they have bought.


Michael Clark: May I interrupt my hon. friend? I do so only to elucidate the argument. Does my hon. friend really think that his argument, at the end of the war, is worth the breath expended on it? He should give figures prior to the war.


Arthur Meighen: 
Michael Clark: Not this country.


Arthur Meighen: Well, better than in the United States; but that does not modify the 
statement in principle in any degree. Well, I think the hon. gentleman has respect for the authority of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and he no doubt knows the celebrated statement of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905 that there were 13,000,000 of the British population who were at or below the line of poverty, not having enough to eat.
Mr, MICHAEL CLARK:	Has the hon.
member the quotation?


Arthur Meighen: Yes; I have it here in a book written by Messrs. Gray and Turner. Mr. Gray is an economist of Britain who has done much investigational work in this country and in the United States. He is a graduate of Oxford. I do not know who Mr. Turner is. They quote Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as saying that " there are about 30 per cent of the British population on the verge of hunger;" that is about 13,000,000. In another work I have, it is put at
13,000,000 definitely; and Sir William Booth, who spent many years investigating the subject in the cities of England, and particularly in London, gives the number at 30.7 per cent who are below the poverty line. And Mr. Booth gives the cause as chiefly unemployment. Mr. Rowntree also, who is a celebrated authority-all these people are British people, not Americans- says that the same thing is true of every part of Britain as of the city of London.


Michael Clark: Does my hon.
friend not know that Mr. Rowntree is a temperance reformer?


Arthur Meighen: I was not aware of that fact.


Michael Clark: He is a temperance reformer and attributes the poverty to drink.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know what he attributes it to but is it not better to have as authority a man who is not interested in trade matters, and therefore not prejudiced, than a man who is prejudiced. This work (Gray and Turner's) is not written on trade subjects at all, it is written on social subjects. They present these facts in order that they may teach-not that there should be a tariff, that is not the purpose of the book; the purpose of the book is wholly different, it is to teach the value of improved methods. Consequently these men are not saying, or colouring, these things in order to make an argument against free trade; although it is not hard to tell what their opinions are. I quote this from those authorities:

It is generally known that American wages are from two to three times as high as the British wages. They are so very much higher than British wages because American production per man is from two to three times as great as is British production, as has been shown in sections 1 and 2.
Again we find these statements:
Those who know America and the British Dominions well are aware that not only are wages from two to three times as high as they are in this country, but that the workers live far better than they live over here, that they are better dressed, better fed, and are able to put by substantial sums of money.
In America, generally speaking, working hours are shorter than in Great Britain, and work is less arduous.
I would like to direct attention to these statements by men of authority, by men who have spent their lives in. a study of this question -particularly the attention of the hon. member for Temiskaming (Mr. McDonald). Such statements could be cited page after page throughout this book; but the case is admitted by the British people. Mr. Lloyd George, stated before the Imperial Conference in 1907 that the degree of unemployment with which they were confronted in Great Britain was very " unpleasant to contemplate," and following that he said: ''that undoubtedly the conditions of employment in Germany were far better than they were in England " and they were undoubtedly better in the United States. Further than that, at the time Great Britain was in this position, at the time Mr. Lloyd George made these statements. Great Britain was losing in population, chiefly her working men, at the rate of 225,000 a year. In 1907, 237,000 of her people left those happy shores, and at the same time Germany was gaining more in population, by immigration of working men, than she was losing. In 1906, 600,000 workingmen from other countries went into Germany and helped to enrich that protected country and that in great degree at the expense of Great Britain herself. Between the years 1850 and the year 1908, 12,000,000 people left British shores, and many millions of them entered the United States. All this was going on under the aegis of free trade with results which I shall describe a little more fully later on.
If the hon. member thinks-and he has argued it time and time again-that free trade is a great boon to the agriculturist why does he not contemplate his own native land. When free trade came into effect-I have the exact official figures before me from the statistical department-the proportion of agricultural population to the whole population of the British Isles was
49.8 per cent, or practically one-half. In the year 1913, before the war, that had been reduced to 21.9. One-half of the whole population when free trade came into effect, was agricultural; one-fifth of the whole population agricultural after it had been in effect for about 70 years.
Such is the result on agriculture. I give Mr. Lloyd George again as my authority for the statement (I feel sure it was he; anyway it is true) that between 1870 and 1906
3,000,000 acres in Great Britain went out of production in corn, and that in the year 1905 there was less wheat land in cultivation than had gone out of wheat production since the introduction of free trade. One million men to-day work in Great Britain in the industry of agriculture. There were more than twice that number at the time free trade came in to make them happy and rich! It was the manufacturers and not the farmers Who wanted free trade in Great Britain and they had good reason then to want it as I will explain. Lord Macaulay in a speech delivered, I think, on hie last election for the University of Edinburgh, about 1851, in ridiculing the antics of the men who opposed his party-I cannot help adopting his language now as regards those who oppose us-said that he did not know where any man stood on this question of free trade or protection. He went into the country and found that there were standards and printed flags, wherever the agricultural population predominated, bearing the legend ''Vote for Smith and Protection." But as soon as he got across the river and into the city it was ''Vote for Smith and Free Trade." These were the prevailing conditions at that time.
Why did England take up free trade? One never can answer for another but had I been at that time an Englishman, as I am to-day a Ganadian, and had I expected as Cobden expected and believed that other countries would follow the example of Great Brittain, I would have taken the step that Cobden advised. Why? Because British industries were then in a state of supremacy. They had the lead in magnitude, in perfection of operation and in the skill of their operatives. They had the lead over the industries of every other country in the world and England had more to gain by free access to the markets of other countries than she had to lose by free access being granted to her own markets. But had I been at that time a Canadian, or a subject of the Mikado of Japan, or a citizen of the United States, I

wouild not have consented to follow the free trade example that Great Britain has set to the various countries of the world for the very simple reason that the industries of the United States of America were less mature, than the industries of Germany, that they were in comparison with British industries, infant industries. These countries were, wisely for themselves, opposed to following Britain's example because they had more to lose by unrestricted access to their own markets than they had to gain by unrestricted access to the markets of Great Britain. And being at this time, as I am, a citizen of a country that in relation to the United States, to England, and to many of the great industrial nations, has its industries in a position of comparative immaturity I would say it would be madness-manifest madness-for us to adopt the principle enunciated by or to follow the trail blazed by the hon member for Red Deer.
Great Britain, he says, is the example for us, but still we must have an excess of exports over imports. If Great Britain has a deficit in exports, as compared with imports of $3,000,000,000 a year, how are we by following Great Britain's example going to get an excess of exports over imports which he says we must get to the amount of $200,090,000 a year?
Then he says, "Follow the United States in these matters; there you have a comparatively free trade country." I admire the hon. gentleman's ability in eulogy, and I admire the skill with which he is able to deceive himself. The United States a free trade country! If the hon. gentleman would go to the United States and make a speech such as he has made here to-day, in the presence of any number of its citizens they would not know what to do with him. A free trade country! If there is one country on the face of the globe that has been rigidly, emphatically and consistently protectionist, it has been the United States. I would like to know what the hon. gentleman means when he talks about the United States being a free trade country or a comparatively free trade country. Of course they have got to the position by their policy of protection where they do not have to import much except raw materials or semi-raw materials and raw materials in the United States are free just as generally they are free with us. When a country advances to a state of industrial predominance, it is not going to have very heavy import taxes imposed on the body of its people, because imports will be relatively small.

England, he says, got into its position whatever it is by following the path of free trade instead of adopting the course which the United States pursued. The tariff taxes in England are far greater per capita than they are in the United States and greater per capita than they are in Canada.


Michael Clark: So was their job in the war.


Arthur Meighen: 

REVISED

[Stage Direction]
advance by leaps and bounds, whereas food remains relatively stationary. Consequently a larger proportion of the world's people are engaged in making these other products and rendering these other services than are engaged in the growing of food. Do what we will, we would be foolish to try to beat back logic itself, and the whole trend and movement of the age. You cannot defeat these things; you cannot conquer economic forces. Our rural population then is diminishing-not in the absolute, but relatively. The rural population of Britain, for the simple reason that their farmers could not begin to compete with those to whom they were exposed to competition by the abolition of the Corn Law's, has gone down precipitately from great to small until to-day it is almost negligible in relation to the rest of the people.
While all this has been going on, have manufactures flourished? Have the great basic industries of England advanced? Did England find herself, when she was confronted with war with Germany, in a position impregnable or even desirable? Why, the story is so plain that everybody knows it. In the great key industries of Britain they found themselves in a position next to humiliation itself. Certainly they pulled through the war; they fought through, muddled through and got through. They got through, and all credit to them, but they got much of their great basic supplies from their Allies. They got their great supplies of iron and steel from other countries on whose friendship they had to depend and without whose friendship their position would have been worse than precarious.
Now when Britain was in the war and under Liberal leadership;-not under the guidance of the present Coalition leader, Mr. Lloyd George, but under the leadership of a man revered by the hon. member for Bed Deer, Mr. Asquith-they set about to ascertain why all this trouble was; why it was that they had landed themselves in a position of comparative helplessness and of dependence upon other nations in this regard. I want to lay before this House the facts as to that investigation, in my judgment about as illuminating facts as ever have been presented to the world, on any subject, of commerce or trade.
Mr. Asquith's Government appointed through its Board of Trade, presided over by Mr. Walter Runciman, four committees, one on the iron and steel industry, one on the engineering trades, one on the textile

[Stage Direction]
trades, and one on the electrical trades. The committee on the iron and steel trades was composed of seven men. Now, I want the House to keep in mind the fact that these committees were not appointed for the purpose of finding a certain verdict; they were appointed under the leadership of a Prime Minister who was a free trader and who doubtless hoped that free trade would be permanent in Great Britain. They were appointed under the presidency of Mr. Runciman who was also a free trader and who certainly would not engineer his department to bring in a verdict hostile to his own course and principles. But here is the verdict; here is the report, and to it I invite the attention not so much of hon. gentlemen opposite-because in my heart I do not believe that very many of them would disagree with a single line or letter of what I am going to read-but particularly to the attention of hon. gentlemen diagonally opposite, men who, I am bound to assume, are sincere in their discussion of this question; men who have gone up and down the township lines in Western Canada and in Eastern Canada and denounced protection as bondage; men who have pointed to the example of Britain; men who have referred to all whose products receive a protective duty as specially privileged persons-often, indeed, calling them " scoundrels great and scoundrels small." Here is the report of the committee on the iron and steel trades of a committee of Britishers. I do not know what they were before, but I know they were not free traders after they got into the facts:
A comparative examination of the iron and steel industries of the U.S.A., Germany and Great Britain reveals the fact that the proportional capacity of production of these three countries stands in the ratio of 40 ; 20 ; 10-
United States four times Britain; Germany twice Britain.
-millions of tons; and a survey of the historical progress of these industries indicates clearly that as a competitor in the markets of the world the United Kingdom has steadily lost ground. In 1880 Great Britain produced 7.7 million tons of pig iron; the U.S.A. produced 3.8 million tons, and Germany 2.7 million tons. In 1900 Great Britain produced 8.9 million tons, the U.S.A. 13.8 million tons, and Germany 6.5 million tons. In 1913, the record year of British iron manufacture, Great Britain produced 10.3 million tons of pig iron, the U.S.A. 31 million tons and Germany 19 million tons.
Forty, twenty, and ten! The committee goes on to say:
In 1880, therefore, Great Britain produced 54 per cent of the total output of the three coun-

tries. In 1900 her production was only 28 per cent, and in 1913 it had fallen to 17 per cent.
To-day it is probably 15 per cent of the output of these three countries-flourishing indeed! and all in the absence of " special privilege " and " scoundrels great and scoundrels small." But, to pass on, what is the remedy?
There is a general consensus of opinion among British manufacturers-
The men who wanted free trade in 1846, the men who forced it on agricultural England.
-that the British interests have suffered severely through the action of foreign syndicates which have been free to exploit the British home markets wherever it suited them to do so, while they themselves were protected from reprisal by the protection extended to them by their respective governments, and that British producers were defenceless against the aggressive methods of their foreign competitors.
The general result of these various conditions is that the iron and steel industries of Great Britain have become thoroughly discredited as a field for the investment of capital.
That report is signed by seven men out of the nine, and included in the signatures in favour of the report is that of Mr. John Hodge, labour leader of England and later Minister of Labour in the Government of Mr. Lloyd George. But I find two signatures against it, not of the plain people about whom the hon. member for Kent (Mr. McCoig) ranted so much; I find an hon. baronet, Sir Hugh Bell, and what he and a Mr. Davison say was so characteristic of the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) that I had to look several times at the signature to be sure it was not "Michael Clark." This is what is said by Mr. Davison and concurred in by Sir Hugh Bell who dissented from .the report:
While in agreement with the recommendations, and with the greater part of the report, I wish to record my complete dissent from those passages which appear to suggest the necessity. of a change in the fiscal policy of the United Kingdom.
No reasons given. The report is all right, they say; it is true that the British iron and steel industries have gone down almost to decay; it is true, they proclaim, that other countries have taken from us the supremacy that we have enjoyed for years; it is true that we found ourselves faced with a war without such equipment in this great basic industry as would alone enable us to survive; all that is true; we hold up both hands as to the truth of every word of it; but we cannot stand for a change in the fiscal policy of England.
Michael Clark: I suppose my hon. friend knows that Sir Hugh Bell is one of the greatest ironmasters in the north of England and, indeed, in the world, and he probably knows what he is speaking about.


Arthur Meighen: That makes it worse
than ever.


Michael Clark: Why should he not want protection?


Arthur Meighen: Because of the very characteristic that-while it is admitted they have many great qualities-very often pervade the citizens of the British Isles, that dogged devotion to custom, obstinately refusing to make a change, that worship of tradition. These, notwithstanding many qualities that have brought them to the forefront of the world, have undoubtedly held them back and handicapped them in a war, and these, as nearly all of them admit now, have cost them thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives to succeed in the struggle, that has passed. Those peculiarities compelled them rather to muddle through instead of being in a position, by virtue of the very superior characteristics of that nation, to win the war at the least possible expense.
We must remember that this report is not the opinion of dogmatists; this is the deliberate judgment after thorough and complete investigation, the full facts of the matter having been laid bare. Does the hon. gentleman contemplate with satisfaction, to use the words of Lloyd George, a change from the position when free trade came on of supremacy in the iron and steel industry down to a ratio of 40 and 20 to 10 against Great Britain and in favour of the United States and Germany? Does he think that is all right? If it is not, how does he expect it is to be overcome? Do not have any artificial means, he says; everything is all right, cure it, somehow, but do not have the Government do anything. That is the policy of the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark). Let us see, just by a few more quotations, -what these leading Englishmen think of that policy. They say this in the report from which I am quoting:
The war has taught at once how urgent was the need for vast resources of iron and steel, and hrw insufficient were the British iron and steel industries to meet that need. The causes of this insufficiency have been dealt with in some, detail elsewhere, and the committee have made recommendations with respect to action within the industries which they believe will go
m*	i !'! i*
far to remedy the defects which the strain of war has only too prominently revealed. Several of these causes, springing mainly from the pressure of foreign competition, cannot be removed by the private action of the industries themselves, and for their elimination direct governmental action is required.
What is that governmental action? They proceed to discuss dumping; they proceed to show that, by virtue of the free trade policy of England, dumping inevitably results that nations pour goods at below cost into England, not necessarily at a loss to the industry in the nation producing these goods because by dodng so, the manufacturers were enabled to increase the scale of their product, and in that way keep down costs, while enabling them to destroy the industries of England at the same time that they were building up their own. They show that in the clearest terms; they advocate protection against dumping, and then they say:
Moreover, the committee are convinced that for the future safeguarding of the iron and steel industries it will be necessary to establish a system of protective duties, and in this opinion they are supported by the practically united feeling of the British iron and steel producers who have given evidence before the committee.
These are from the same class of men who precipitated free trade on England, and they are practically united in their opinion that as things are going the industry cannot succeed, and without the iron and steel industry, what other industry can live? The iron and steel industry is the basis of a huge percentage of all other industries; it is the great substructure of all the industries of the country. But they go on:
The maintenance of a great open market in the midst of the greater producing nations of the world is incompatible with the prosperity and even with the existence of a native iron and steel industry. Under modern conditions, the expenditure of capital is immense; renewals of plant must be rapid and frequent, and amortization must, therefore, be swift. This capital cannot be obtained unless there is reasonable security for the industry into -which it is to be placed. So long as the British home market can be flooded with foreign imported material, a native industry will continue to be unprofitable and will become more and more unsafe.
I ask the indulgence of the House while I read further, because a more succinct and better informed presentation of the case, carrying clearer reasons with it, could not possibly be given:
The conditions of competition between Great Britain and her rivals are thoroughly unequal.

Not because British character and ability are not equal to those of other nations, but for the reasons they set out:
The iron and steel industries of Germany and America are protected from retaliatory action by heavy tariffs.
That is, in a "comparatively free trade country."
Their home market is practically assured to the national industries, and the whole weight of their competitive force can be thrown into the trade in external markets. Great Britain depends for her prosperity much more upon exports than either Germany or America ; but by reason of her free-trade system she has been compelled to divert her greatest strength from exports to the struggle for maintenance of her markets at home. The non-existence of a fiscal policy of any kind renders effective governmental action impossible, since Great Britain possesses no economic weapon by which concessions of any kind can be won from her trade rivals.
Now this is most significant, and I should like this to be read in association with the figures as regards the tin-plate industry given by the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion):
A signal instance of this disadvantage is afforded by the history of the Welsh Tinplate trade after the introduction of the McKinley Tariff in the U.S.A., which resulted in the building up within a few years of an immense tinplate industry founded largely upon labour which migrated from South Wales.	.
"Which migrated from South Wales!"
The Welsh industry was for many years well-nigh ruined. Its mills and works were idle; its workmen were scattered far and wide, and cruel distress reigned in South Wales. Yet nothing could be done, save to yield to the operation of "natural" causes.
And as if to avoid plagiarism of the hon. member for Marquette they put the word "natural" in quotation marks. It goes:
The Committee therefore recommend that customs duties be imposed upon all imported iron and steel and manufactures thereof. They are of opinion that a specific duty should be levied upon each class of commodity, and that [DOT] there should be maximum, general and minimum tariffs. The amount of tariff should be determined by consideration of the needs of the Industry protected, and by the needs of the nation as a whole; and the amount of specific tariff should be varied readily, according to the changing demands of national policy.
Another familiar phrase!


Michael Clark: Was this committee appointed by the present Government in England?


Arthur Meighen: No, by the Asquith Government, distinctly a Simon-pure Liberal Government, and it just reported in 1918. It took two years for its work. It goes on:

The existence of a tariff of this nature woyld, in the opinion of the Committee, be of the greatest advantage to the industries and the nation. There is no reason to believe that the price to the consumer would rise.
Listen to this:
On the contrary, the increase in production at home would lead to very material reduction in costs, since it would be possible to effect economies in production by the installation of more complete and better plant. The experience of the United States proves that the stimulating effect upon production through the conservation of the home market results in an actual reduction rather than in an increase of price.
There is scarcely one of the romances in the theory which the hon. member for Red Deer has preached for the last twelve years that is not driven off the stage, or, as he himself expresses it, has not its head cut off at the tail, by this report of experts in his native land. It goes on:
Again, the existence of a tariff will place in the hands of the State a most powerful -weapon of economic defence.
That is the argument urged by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's in the
very first Budget Speech he ever made in this House-the existence of a tariff was necessary for economic defence. So impressed was he with that argument, that before his Budget Speech he did what no Finance Minister has ever done before. He made a preliminary statement in the city of Montreal in which he said that on account of the contemplated 75 cents a ton duty in the Dingley tariff, there would be no reduction in the coal duty in this country, and he further stated. in the same speech that if they would dare to put on that 75 cents a ton duty he would retaliate with a duty on anthracite coal itself. Everyone gets to see these views when they get into office. The report goes on:
The weakness of any scheme of imperial preference has hitherto been the inability of Britain to offer any real privilege in return for those accorded to her by the Dominions. The possession of a tariff will enable this country to discriminate in favour of the Dominions and to give them concession for concession.
(8)	A tariff will be no less advantageous in the course of negotiations with independent foreign countries. Here, too, Britain has in the past had nothing with which to bargain, and has, therefore, been unable adequately to protect the interests of her subjects.
(9)	From the labour standpoint a tariff i3 no less necessary.
And remember this is signed by John Hodge. I emphasize this, because there is a sort of bewildering combination now being sought between the U.F.O. and Labour:
From the labour standpoint a tariff is no less necessary. The anxiety of Germany is to pre-

serve an open market in Britain ; and it will not be to the interest of the workmen employed in the British iron and steel industries to permit the unchecked importation of the product of foreign labour, working under conditions far less favourable than those of British labour.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Is that report signed by Balfour oi Burleigh?


Arthur Meighen: No, I will give the signatures. I do not know who they are: G. Scob.v-Smith (Chairman), John King, G. Mure Ritchie, Hy. Summers, Benj. Talbot. From that there is a dissenting statement hy Sir Hugh Bell and Mr. John E. Davison.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The committee reported in 1918?


Arthur Meighen: But was appointed in 1916 by the Government of Mr. Asquith.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Has any action been taken by the British Government along the lines of that report?


Arthur Meighen: I do not think any action has been taken except what I shall describe a little later on. Over there they are now going through the contortions and groatfiings and sufferings that precede repentance.
As respects the electrical trades, a committee consisting of six men was appointed, and their report is unanimous. In the Old Country, just as here, these men are appointed for the purpose of a specific investigation, they are appointed because they have special qualifications for the purpose, the committees are composed of representatives of every class. They are confronted in Britain just as we are here, with orators of the same sort as the hon. member for Red Deer, and with demagogues like other hon. gentlemen who go up and down the side lines in Western Canada and elsewhere talking "special privilege." All that, they have to overcome, and they are now in process of overcoming it. The report on the electrical trades says:
Again, foreign governments, appreciating- the importance of conserving their home markets as a basis for the development of overseas trade, imposed protective duties, and exerted influence on State Departments to purchase native goods.
They go on and say:
The necessity for protective duties has been emphasized by many witnesses connected with manufacturing interests and has been frankly recognized by representatives of purchasers.
Of purchasers. That is consumers.
The Committee is convinced that adequate protection is necessary and should be given at least for a period.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for
Quebec East applauds.


Ernest Lapointe: The word "adequate" is so often used.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend ironically applauds at the phrase "adequate protection." The Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding) whom he supported, the father of this milk and water amendment now before the House described his tariff, the Fielding tariff, as "adequate protection" himself, and I shall quote from his remarks after recess.
At Six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.


Arthur Meighen: The unanimous report of the British Government Committee on electrical trades states:
The necessity of retaining the home markets as a basis of overseas trade has never been properly recognized in this country-
That is, in England; and their recommendation is as follows:
The imposition of import duties sufficiently high to protect effectively the electrical industry.
And this following is something that is of moment in relation to a charge made in speeches of hon. members opposite, that Great Britain had been free from mergers and combines, which they seemed to believe were invariably against the interests of the consumers and the common people. This is the recommendation:
The recognition of the advantage of combination among manufacturers, and official co-operation with such action.
I can be very brief with the other reports; they are all precisely to the same effect.
Mr. CHARLES MURPHY': Is the report from which the hon. minister is quoting signed by the same gentlemen as the report which he read this afternoon?


Arthur Meighen: No; it is signed by a separate committee appointed on this subject. 'The members of that committee are: Hon. Sir Charles A. Parsons, Mr. John Annan Bryce, Mr. T. O. Callender, Mr. James Devonshire, Mr. Bernard Mervyn Drake and Sir John Snell. There was no minority report. In the case of the engineering trades the committee was composed of the following: Sir Clarendon Golding Hyde, Mr. Arthur Balfour-I do not know.

[DOT]whether that is Arthur J. Balfour or not; I do not suppose it is; Mr. Albert John Hobson, Mr. William B. Lang, Sir Hallewell Rogers, Mr. Herbert B. Rowell, and Mr. Douglas Vickers.
The report of that committee was to the same effect as the previous report and I can summarize it in a word. They first of all, of course, outline the difficulties against which the trades have laboured. They depict in very clear and emphatic language the position to which they have 'been relegated in the struggle for world trade, and they end with this recommendation, among others:
That a Government department be charged with the duty of exercising vigilance over the adequate provision in this country of manufacturers as distinct from our staple trades which are at any time essential to the national safety, such as tungsten and magnetos.
(b)	That the development of the supply of raw materials within the Empire for such essential industries be supervised, encouraged and assisted by the Government.
(c)	That all necessary steps to protect such essential industries be taken by the Government, whether by prohibition, tariff protection or subsidy.


Michael Clark: That is, during the war?


Arthur Meighen: No; it is a recommendation as to what is to be done after the war. They do not refer to the war period at all. What would be the sense in starting a subsidy system or a protective tariff in 1916 to help England during the war?
The committee on the textile trades take up each separate department of those trades in England, and make investigation into their conditions and their needs. If there is any respect in which England has managed to hold part of her own in business, it is in the textile trades. As to iron and steel she long ago abdicated her position, but with the textile trades this has not been true to the same extent. Here is what the report says with regard to these trades. As to the cotton trade:
In the cotton trade there is very little demand for any change in our present policy. The trade is predominantly an export trade, 80 per cent of its output being exported, and it cannot expect to derive direct benefit from any system of import duties upon yarns or manufactured goods. On the other hand, there is a generally expressed fear that the imposition of anything like a general tariff might raise costs of production, and to that extent handicap and lessen efficiency of trade in world competition. A majority of witnesses were in favour of restrictions upon trade with the Central Powers after the war.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: When was this committee appointed?


Arthur Meighen: In 1916.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: All these committees
were appointed during the war.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, but they report what is to be done after the war, and they say so definitely in the report which they make in 1918.
They report late in 1918, having been appointed, under the Asquith Government, on the 27th of April, 1916.


Mr. DEMERS:: What is the date of the report?


Arthur Meighen: be ruinous, to Canada. At that time he brought down a tariff supposed to give a preference to Great Britain alone but which would in effect give a preference not only to Great Britain but to Belgium, and Germany, and by virtue of treaties, to nations practically all over the world enjoying favoured nation treatment; it was pointed out that its extension would be world wide. He denied the point when it was raised but he later conceded its correctness by coming down to this House and confining his tariff to Great Britain, because the treaties with these other nations had, I believe, at the request of Canada, specifically been denounced. But when the Budget Speech was delivered at that time the interjections which were offered by the Conservatives who were in Opposition clearly showed that they regarded the tariff that he had brought down as indistinguishable from the tariff which had preceded it and clearly showed that he then and there had departed from the principles to which his party had long given their adherence.
I hold in my hand the official percentage figures of duty charged under the tariff of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding) and under the preceding tariff and I purpose to show the House just the extent to which his tariff was in the least degree different. The last tariff under the Conservative Government-because the scale had been reduced very much by the Conservative Government in the revision of 1894-gave an average percentage of duty on dutiable goods, (and these articles m effect remained the same) of 29.96 per cent. That was the tariff which went out of effect in 1897 when the Fielding tariff came in. The hon. gentleman gave us a tariff in which the percentage, instead of being 29.96, was 29.22, or the great reduction of .74 per cent. That is precisely the reduction that was made and that I suppose is all the hon. gentleman had to do to bring the tariff out of the Tory category and make it in keeping with the "historic" principles of Liberalism. The next year the percentage was 28.65. It remained around there till 1907. In 1908 it was increased and in 1909 it was further increased. It was increased indeed as much in 1909 as it was diminished in 1897. I do not know whether that was apostacy from the principles of Liberalism in 1909 but there was the same raise in 1909 as there was reduction in 1897 and in neither year was there anything like the change that was made by way of reduction by the Minister of Finance in connection 
with the revision that preceded it in 1894 -nothing to compare with it in any degree and nothing to compare, in the wrhole fifteen years, during which the responsibility was upon the Liberal Government, with the reduction that is embodied in the Budget which we are debating to-day or even in the Budget we were debating last year. The reduction to-day is 40 times greater than theirs.
The tariff brought down now and under review by this House is the tariff of 1911 reduced in very considerable degree through all the long scale of articles enumerated in the excellent speech of the hon. member for St. John city (Mr. Elkin) a scale involving large aggregate reductions in the duties collected.
Now what position do we find ourselves in? In the meantime a new party has arisen. In the meantime the old creed-that which was the creed of the Liberal party of Canada before 1896-has been passed over to a new group originating in Western Canada and represented in this (Bouse by the members called the Agrarian party. The spokesman of that party this afternoon quoted the words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1893 denouncing protection and stated that his party was the heir to that doctrine, which was in its possession now. It is not a legacy at all. It is nothing that passes by way of will on the death of the testator. It was assigned and put out of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's possession away back twenty-one -yes, twenty-four years ago. It was his property in 1895 but it never was his property afterwards.


Michael Clark: It is coming.


Arthur Meighen: It is coming, the hon.
gentleman says. The hon. gentleman was complaining this afternoon that it was not coming. He was reading speeches to show that hon. gentlemen opposite are apostates to their doctrine.


Michael Clark: Assiniboia.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, there is the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gould):	I
know he agrees with it, but how many hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House agree with it? I shall proceed in a minute to show that in 1893, before they knew what the responsibility of office was, before they had come close up to the real situation in Canada and were compelled to study it witfi a view to action, these hon. gentlemen denounced protection in adjectives that would almost burn the tongue. Nothing was too strong. They put forward a plat-

form that denounced it. But in fifteen years of office what did they do?
They met last August. Did they denounce protection then? Not a breath! Last August they adopted a platform which Btarted out with the resolution, moved now as an amendment by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). They had a platform last August which called for reduction with a view to securing these two visionary things that are so useful on the stump and so meaningless in themselves:
Diminishing the very high cost of living which presses so severely on the masses of the people; reducing the cost of the instruments of production in the industries based on the natural resources of the Dominion, the vigorous development of which is essential to the progress and prosperity of our country.
That was the first half of the Liberal tariff platform. Then it goes on-here is something practical; here is the method, here are the actual, specific, concrete things they are going to do in order to bring about these highly desirable results.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: An hon. gentleman says "Hear, hear." They proceed:
That, to these ends, wheat, wheat flour and all products of wheat; the principal articles of food; farm implements and machinery; farm tractors, mining, flour and saw-mill machinery and repair parts thereof; rough and partly dressed lumber-
The House, will please observe the word "partly." In some of the newspaper editions of the platform they had it "dressed" lumber, but I see that the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) has part of the "dress" off and it is "partly" dressed when it comes into the debate in this House. That is a significant difference.
-gasoline, illuminating, lubricating and fuel oils; nets, rtet-tw'ines and fishermen's equipments ; cements and fertilizers, should be free from customs duties, as well as the raw material entering into the same.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: The leader of the Opposition says: "Hear, hear." I will have a few questions to put to him later on, and I hope he will be as prompt with his reply. Then the resolution goes on:
That a revision downwards of the tariff should be made whereby substantial reductions should be effected in the duties on wearing apparel and footwear, and on other articles of general consumption (other than luxuries), as well as on the raw materials entering into the manufacture of the same.
That the British preference be increased to fifty per cent of the general tariff.
And the Liberal party hereby pledges itself_
Just think of what goes into that pledge.
-to implement by legislation the provisions of this resolution when returned to power.
Now, just let me read in that connection the platform of the Agrarian or Farmers' party that had previously been adopted, so that hon. gentlemen may get a little inside look into what went on at this Liberal convention, when they managed to evolve the beautiful production that I have just read. Hon. gentlemen will remember that the leader of the Opposition has 'been touring the country telling the people that the Liberals	and the farmers were first
cousins; that there was really little difference between them ; that they both had the same great cause at heart; and he appealed and looked for a union of the twain, of course, under hi.s supreme leadership. Now, here was the Farmers' platform that they were trying to copy; they wanted to produce a little ship painted as nearly like the Farmers' vessel as they could make it, and get it through the convention. The farmers wanted the high cost of living reduced, and wanted also the same thing with regard to the instruments of production. The first parts of these two platforms are practically the same. Now does the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) see why hon. gentlemen opposite sought to lure them with the milk-and-water resolution moved in this debate? I think he sees that all right. Now, let us look at the Farmers' platform.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: I can let the hon.
gentleman have a copy of it.


Arthur Meighen: I have it in front of me.
It eays that our tariff laws should be amended as follows:
(a)	By an immediate and substantial allround reduction of the customs tariff.
(b)	By reducing the customs duty on goods imported from Great Britain to one-half the rates charged under the general tariff, and that further gradual, uniform reductions be made in the remaining tariff on British imports that will ensure complete free trade between Great Britain and Canada in five years.
(c)	By endeavouring to secure unrestricted reciprocal trade in natural products with the United States along the lines of the Reciprocity Agreement of 1911.
(d)	By placing all foodstuffs on the free list.
This is the article that hon. gentlemen opposite took for imitation:
(e)	That agricultural implements, farm and household machinery, vehicles, fertilizers, coal, lumber, cement, gasoline, illuminating, fuel and

lufbricating oils be placed on the free list and that all raw materials and machinery used in their manufacture also be placed on the free list.
(f)	That all tariff concessions granted to other countries be immediately extended to Great Britain.
That is the one they sought to imitate. It will be observed that in this second part enumerating the articles that they were going to have free, the farmers included agricultural implements, farm and household machinery, vehicles, fertilizers, coal, lumber, cement, gasoline, illuminating, fuel and lubricating oils, and no more.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask my hon. friend if that part of the Farmers' programme is not taken from resolutions moved on this side of the House and supported by Liberals in this House in previous sessions? If there is any imitation, it is not on our side.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is contending that the farmers stole their programme from hon. gentlemen opposite.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -Possibly that part of it,


Arthur Meighen: That feature of it.
Well, if that is the case, why did the hon. gentleman change it again at the Liberal convention?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was not
changed.


Arthur Meighen: It was not changed?
What about vehicles? What about coal? Did the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) put something over on my hon. friend? Where does he find coal in this list of free goods?-
Wheat, wheat flour and all products of wheat; the principal articles of food, farm implements and machinery; farm tractors, mining, flour and saw-mill machinery and repair parts thereof; rough and partly dressed lumber; gasoline; illuminating, lubricating and fuel oils; nets, net-twines and fishermen's equipments, cements and fertilizers.
No coal there; no vehicles there. Does the hon. gentleman think that the member for Cape Breton North and the member for Shelburne and Queen's would stand for free coal? Does he not remember the speeches of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's in this House when he was Minister of Finance? Does he think that the member for Cape Breton North would submit to free coal? Free coal is left out, but they meet the gentlemen of the Farmers' party half way, as they call it. How do they do it? They leave out free coal and vehicles, and they say to the gentlemen of

the Farmers' party: Now, you just do without free coal and vehicles and we will give you-what? Free wheat, wheat flour and the products of wheat; farm tractors; rough and partly dressed lumber; nets, net twines and fishermen's equipment. We will put every one of these on the free list-every one of them was free before they passed the resolution and is free to-day. Of this list of eighteen articles that I have just read, the following are altogether free:	wheat,
wheat flour and products of wheat; farm tractors up to $1,400-that includes the bulk that are used-rough lumber; partly dressed lumber; gasolene-12 cents a gallon in free trade England but free in Canada- nets, net-twine and fishermen's equipment. Just think of the hon. member for Brome solemnly getting the Liberal convention to put in this new article in order to make the list look long: "nets, net-twines and fishermen's equipment " all of which, together with the articles that I have read, are free already. And this is the Liberal platform that takes the place of the pronouncement of 1893, where protection was consigned to everlasting oblivion. Even fertilizers uncompounded are free now, but of the eighteen articles I think it is eleven that are free already; and the making free of these eleven already free and of the six others that I will refer to in a minute constitutes the concrete policy of the Liberal party to-day.
Let me ask the leader of the Opposition why was not the Liberal tariff platform moved in amendment to this Budget?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall give the answer when I make my speech.


Arthur Meighen: What has become of
the Liberal platform? What is the matter with the latter half of it? The member for Shelburne and Queen's knows that he cannot move another amendment; he knows that right well. Why, they have taken this Liberal platform and they have cut the dog,-well, not at the tail, but they have cut it horizontally right through the middle; they have left- the whole travelling part at home.
What is the matter with the active, concrete portions of the Liberal platform? Why is it discarded? Is it a scrap of paper? Has it gone the way of the Liberal platform of 1893 and the denunciations of protection? I think it has. The leader of the Opposition has a somewhat difficult task in trying to sing the siren's song to the Agrarian party and at the same time to keep pretty close to the tune of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. MAY 25, 1920
Fielding). But my prognostication is that my hon. friend (Mr. Mackenzie King) will get a great deal closer to the note of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's than he will to that of the hon. member for Red Deer. What has become of the active, concrete portions of the Liberal platform? Where is this 50 per cent British preference? Why has it gone by the board? Nothing doing ! No one speaking ! Where, too, has the Farmers' Platform gone, this Farmers' Platform which has been proclaimed not for rhonths but for years in this country? Have we ever heard it moved in this House?


Michael Clark: We did pretty well in Carleton, N.B.


Arthur Meighen: We shall stay in Ottawa just now. Is it the amendment to the Budget? Not at all. All they are seeking is to pick out something that is common to the two and that means the minimum, nothing, if they can get to it, in order, if they possibly can, to get a vote of want of confidence in the Government of the day. That is what I called political poker playing.
I set out to say that both parties, if you call them such, or rather both horses of the same team, for political purposes, pretending only to pull in opposite ways, ask for a reduction in the duty on agricultural implements.


Mr. W. H. WHITE:: Did the minister not move in this House in 1910 a resolution asking that all duties be removed from agricultural implements?


Arthur Meighen: He did not. The trouble with hon. gentlemen opposite is that they do not investigate and get at the facts.


William Henry White: Perhaps I did not ask the question aright.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member
asked the question aright, but he was under a wrong impression.


William Henry White: Perhaps, it was the wrong year. Did the minister do so at any time?


Arthur Meighen: No, never in the world.


William Henry White: All right.


Arthur Meighen: I know what the hon. gentleman is thinking of. In the month of January, 1911, when the duties on farm implements were as I shall give them in a minute, I moved for a substantial reduction in those duties.	-


William Henry White: Just that and no more.


Arthur Meighen: Just that, and just that I obtained but not from the hon. gentleman's friends. Why, the hon. gentleman does not know what the duties are. The following are the duties that he supported and that hon. gentlemen angularly opposite supported through the whole fifteen years of Liberal government. I will give the reasons, taken from Hansard, why they did so. In order to keep things clear before hon.' members, I had better give three scales of duties, first the one that prevailed for fifteen years. On some articles it was a little higher prior to 1907; they did not reduce the duty on farm implements by a copper between 1896 and 1907, a period of eleven years; then they took 2) per cent off certain farm implements, and they said that was a very substantial reduction.


Mr. EDWARDS:: And they increased the valuations.


Arthur Meighen: The valuations increased. Under the Fielding tariff the duty on ploughs was 20 per cent; under reciprocity it would have been 15 per cent; now it is 17* per cent.	.


Mr. COCKSHUTT:: Fifteen per cent.


Arthur Meighen: I think it is 17* per cent, although possibly I am wrong in that, but that I think is one of only two exceptions in the whole list where the present level is not as low as under the Reciprocity tariff. Fielding Under Tariff Reciprocity To-day Per cent Per cent Per cent
Binders	
17*	15	12*Mowers	
17*	15	12*Reapers	
17*	15	12*


William Henry White: At the same valuation?


Arthur Meighen: No, the Liberals raised the valuations.


William Henry White: You have raised the valuation somewhat since.


Arthur Meighen: The valuations rise
with the value, and always did. I continue :
Fielding Under Tariff Reciprocity To-day Per cent Per cent per cent Seed drills .... 20	15	15Weeders	
20	20	15
The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's would not reduce this tariff.

Fielding Under
Tariff Reciprocity To-day
Per Manure	cent	Per cent	per centspreaders ....	20	20	15Harrows	20	15	15Traction engines	20	20 Free up to valuation of $1,400	Separators .. ..	20	15	174Farm wagons ..	25	221	20Windmills .. ..	20	20	174Fanning mills..	25	20	20Cultivators .. ..	20	15	15
I have taken a list of the fourteen principal farm implements, and I find that the duties on eight out of the fourteen are lower to-day than they were under the Fielding tariff and lower to-day than they would have been under reciprocity.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who lowered them?


Arthur Meighen: Lowered by the Government of Sir Robert Borden. On eight the duties are lower even than under the reciprocity; on four more the duties are lower than under the Fielding tariff and equal to what they would have been under reciprocity; on two of them, or the balance, the duties are lower than they were under the Fielding tariff.
Mr. CREiRAR: Why does the minister not get to work and reduce the duties on those articles still further?


Arthur Meighen: I will tell my hon. friend why just in a minute; but I have said enough to show that if in 1907 there was a substantial reduction made which hon. gentlemen supported as such, twice that reduction was made by the Government that is now in office. The duties on farm implements under the Fielding tariff would average 20.18; under reciprocity they would have averaged 17.32, and under the present tariff they average 14.64. What I should like to submit to hon. gentlemen is this. If they believe what they profess to believe on this question, would not the better thing for them to do be to support a government that acts, rather than a government that professes and fails to act?


Michael Clark: I will answer that question.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: I have no objection, Mr. Speaker.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Clark) has already spoken.


Michael Clark: Might I suggest that the minister do not speak by way of asking questions.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The minister is quite within his right to submit any questions he chooses.


Arthur Meighen: Just before the House took recess at six o'clock, I stated, in answer to an ironical interruption by the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe), who seemed to take a sort of sarcastic pleasure in the use of the term "adequate protection," that the leader whom he will undoubtedly now support and the exMinister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) whom he supported for many years, proclaimed the Fielding tariff as a tariff of adequate protection. Now I propose to show that that is correct, and I do not think he was very far wrong in his description. In fact, in some cases I thought, and think still, he had too high protection. Speaking on the 7th of June, 1964, in the Budget Speech he said that his tariff had:
included a considerable measure of incidental protection-
That was the favourite word of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's all the time he was in office in describing his protective tariff. He took care almost universally to call it "incidental" protection, as if it made a bit of difference what adjective he applied to it, whether it was incidental, accidental or transcendental. It was not the adjective, but the amount of the duty that counted, and those who were interested in the tariff of Canada did not care whether he called it incidental protection or anything else. He went on to say:
-and in that respect It will command the admiration perhaps of hon. gentlemen opposite who are more anxious for protection than some of us on this side of the House.
"Same of us." He did not name them. He goes on:
X think as to whether or not it is adequate protection we have some evidence of a gratifying character that the tariff, without being excessive, is high enough to bring some American industries across the line-
Pretty real protection!

and a tariff which is able to bring these industries into Canada, looks very much like a tariff which affords adequate protection.
"Adequate protection."
And in the year 1909, I think it was or 1908, speaking on a motion for the further reduction of the duty on these very implements he made this statement, and I ask hon. gentlemen who feel like supporting the

hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's in this vague, visionary, misty, and cloudy resolution, after he has lopped off the specific and the actual, just to read what he said when in office and in which he still believes to-day, judging from, the whole tenor of his speech. Opposing the motion for reduction he said:
With a moderate duty we have induced American capital to come into Canada and to establish that great industry (The International Harvester Company of Hamilton) and after we have brought it in and established it in Canada, I believe that if we were to pass this resolution-
Reducing the duties, not making them free, but still leaving on 10 per cent. He says:
I believe that, if we were to pass this resolution the company operating that industry would find it profitable to close the Hamilton factory and bring in goods which they make in the United States.
That was his reason for oipposing the motion. He was opposed to reducing the duty by 7J. per cent when in office. But once out of office and when he wanted to perform a marriage ceremony with hon. gentlemen angularly opposite he is ready to take the whole duty off and leave it just as it w'as before 1896. He said:
On behalf of the Government I wish to say, following the statement of my hon. friend the Minister of Customs, that while we are not advocating a high tariff, while we are not advocating a Chinese wall tariff, while we are not seeking to shut everything out, we are willing that a moderate-
Listen to the words:
-that a moderate degree of protection, if you care to use the word, arising out of a tariff designed for revenue, but incidentally-
The same old phrase.
-giving some protection,-in some instances a considerable measure of protection-we are willing that, where there is a great industry in Canada, it shall receive a fair share of consideration which we have given by this tariff on agricultural implements, and so I must ask the House to reject the amendment of the hon. member for Souris.
Now it was argued in that debate, and argued again in the reciprocity debate in 1911, that the tariff that existed at that time, particularly the tariff on implements, was no more than a revenue tariff, and when the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's came back from Washington and announced his programme, he told the House that he could not reduce further the duty on implements, and he said that the reason was that to do so would be getting below the line of a revenue tariff. Now I ask hon. gentlemen
opposite if, at a time when the revenue necessities of this country were $125,000,000, the Fielding reciprocity tariff was no more than a revenue tariff, how does a much lower tariff become too high for a revenue tariff when the revenue necessities of this country are $350,000,000? Besides, through all those years, and many of them were hard years-there has never been a depression in Canada for twenty or thirty years like the depression of 1907 and 1908-he adhered to these means, and these means alone, of raising the revenue and never dared to impose one dollar of direct taxation in this country. I ask again if that Fielding tariff, if that scale of tariff, was no more than a revenue tariff, when we had not the courage to have direct taxation at all, how can hon. gentlemen complain of this scale now' that we have $81,000,000 by direct taxation and propose to have $181,000,000 next year? There could be nothing more inconsistent, nothing more ludicrously grotesque, than the position of hon. gentlemen opposite in respect of the scale of this tariff if they remember for one minute not only their owm innate beliefs on this subject, but the beliefs they put into practice through fifteen years of power.
Now I observe in this Liberal platform of August last, the greater part of which is now left at home, that they have changed the wrords of the farmers' resolution which calls for all foodstuffs to be put on the free list to read "the principal articles of food." The House will appreciate the skill of the generality, but would it not be interesting, and, indeed, is it not absolutely necessary, that the people of this country should know from hon. gentlemen opposite what these principal articles of food are. What are the principal articles of food? May I ask, is tea a principal article of food? I venture to say I shall never get an answrer from the leader of the Opposition, and I venture to say he will not give me an answer when he speaks in this debate. Is sugar a principal article of food? I would think it would be. We use something like $100,000,000 a year of sugar, we import $75,000,000, and we make quite a lot here. Is it the intention of hon. gentlemen opposite to put raw sugar and refined sugar on the free list? If it is, I think the country has a right to know. Whether it is their intention or not, I think the country has a right to know. Here is our tariff. What do you mean by your professions? Are meats a principal article of food? Are biscuits a principal article of food? Biscuits, the hallowred biscuits on which they never thought of revising the duty, even under reciprocity,

below 30 cents a pound. Are they a principal article of food? What are these principal articles of food? No answer, and there will be no answer, Mr. Speaker. It is in the vagueness and the generality of it that they take their refuge. Virtually all is vague and meaningless except the things that are free now, that were put in for mere padding, to make an appearance, and to paint a little ornament to look like the Farmers' platform. I have not succeeded in getting much in the way of answer from the leader of the Opposition.


Mr. PEDLOW:: He has not been given an opportunity to reply.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. leader of the Opposition will have his opportunity in due course.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: 


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: If any hon. gentleman has a remark to make he might do the House the courtesy of rising in his seat.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: I rise to a point of order.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: What is the point of
order?


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: My point of order is,
Sir, that by your ruling we are precluded from the possibility of answering questions asked by the member who has the floor.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I fail to observe the
point of order. The hon. member who has raised it has trifled with the rules of order of the House, which are clear and distinct. A question may be submitted by an hon. member who has the floor but no member has any right to make any statement in reply, even with the consent of the hon. member who has the floor.


Ernest Lapointe: It was just a figure
of rhetoric.


Arthur Meighen: It has been the practice that an hon. gentleman, with the consent of the member who has the floor, may reply. I do not wish to question the ruling of the Chair, but I want to add this, that no hon. member has been precluded from replying to any question by any act of mine, either on this or on any other occasion. In fact, I should be pleased if the rule of the House could be ignored so far as this point is concerned.
Now, I desire to refer to one thing else, and it is clearly in harmony with the whole proceeding we are witnessing now. Hon. members will recall that a leading figure in the Liberal Convention in August last was the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). Not satisfied with

the result of his labours, and no doubt having some recollection of the agony he went through in 1896 and the humiliating position in which he was frequently placed thereafter, he went back and wrote in the Journal of Commerce, a paper which he edits in the city of Montreal, a clear intimation, which I can read to the House if it desires, that the only practical acceptation of the platform of hon. gentlemen opposite was one with "interpretations and reservations," and that anyway platforms that were made at conventions were made in a hurry and were not footstools of policy or declarations of principle, but were merely in the nature of platforms on Pullman coaches to get in upon. That is the frank confession of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's, and this platform which he himself denominated as a mere means to get in on is the platform of which he takes a truncated section and brings it into this House seeking by so doing to get a vote of want of confidence against the Government.
I remarked a few moments ago that we never had even from hon. gentlemen of the Agrarian party any motion in this House asking this House to debate and declare its judgment upon the platform which they profess. A year, or two years ago-I forget which -we had an attempt on the part of the hon. member for Red Deer to bring in something of the kind. It was stated at that time by you, Mr. Speaker, that on a motion to go into Ways and Means, that is to say, on the Budget debate, one amendment could be moved and no sub-amendment could be moved thereto, and also that, no second amendment could be moved after the first amendment had been defeated. In other words, there can be only one amendment. Hlon. gentlemen knew that right well. It was shown them clearly by Mr. Speaker two years ago. But they come to this debate with a motion in amendment made by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's, a member of the official Opposition; and members of the Agrarian party know that by allowing him to make this motion they are precluded from moving their platform by way of amendment. Why was that? Was a request made that they be allowed to move their platform by way of amendment, and was it refused? I think not. Is i't not clearly the purpose to protect those hon. gentlemen opposite from declaring where they stand on the farmers' platform? The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) laughs. For two years, or for something more than

one year at any rate, the hon. gentleman has been a private member, and neither he nor any of his followers has ever put that platform on the Orders of the Day. They have never sought a discussion of it in this House; they have never challenged the opinions of hon. members in regard to it; they have never put hon. gentlemen opposite in the position of voting Yea or Nay. They have left them in such a position that they can go hand in hand with themselves in the country never having come into a recorded antagonism in Parliament. Each side can hold up a different flag and follow a different leader, seeking to get the free trade vote in one part of Canada and the protectionist vote in another, and then afterwards come back together to show the people of the country just what they care for the opinions and professions they make before a contest. That was the performance in 1897. It looks as if something even worse were on the programme to-day, and I am confirmed in that statement by the opinions freely and definitely expressed on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite. I know that the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Beland) went to Montreal to the sanctuary of Liberalism, the Reform club, and stated there at. the time of the by-election in St. James, that he did not stand for free trade; that, in fact, there was not a single free trader in his party. He said he stood for a well-regulated system of protection. And the hon. member now for St. James (Mr. Rinfret) declared in his speech in that campaign that he too stood for the encouragement of industries by a protective system. He was elected, not on the platform that is here moved in amendment, not on anything that bears a family resemblance to the professions of hon. gentlemen in the Agrarian party. He was elected on the platform upon which this Government stands in regard to tariff matters. That, Sir, is what he was elected on. He utilizes the tariff policy of this Administration to get elected in order afterwards to vote a want of confidence in the Government that puts forward that policy. That is his position.


Mr. POWER:: Why did you not get him elected?


Arthur Meighen: Well, he got elected and the man on the other side stood for the same. As between the two, there was not much difference so far as we were concerned; and all we ask of the hon. member for St. James is that he now vote according to the professions he made, that he stand true to the electors to whom he made those
professions, on the strength of which he got their votes. And what about the hon. member for Huntingdon (Mr. Robb)? He too was in the Montreal Reform Club and made a speech in which he defined himself as clearly in favour of the encouragement of the industries of a country by legislation. That is where he stands. And what about the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Pardee) who represents the city of Sarnia and the thriving county of Lambton? He went to the same Montreal Reform Club and he denounced free trade hip and thigh. He declared himself in favour of a tariff not only for the purpose of revenue but because we had to have a tariff for economic reasons, for protective reasons, and he knows he stands for that principle. He knows he is an advocate of protection as a principle; he would not dare to vote for a resolution in this House, that denounced the principle of protection. Now I ask him if in this debate, where there is nothing at all in controversy but that principle, to stand up and vote as he professes and believes.
We have all these declarations of faith on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite saying to the people of Eastern Canada to its farthest limits " Do not be afraid of us. Here is our faith presented by Mr. Pardee of Lambton, Mr. Rinfret of St. James, Mr. Beland of Beauce, Mr. Robb of Huntingdon, and Mr. Lemieux" -they might just as well add him and they could add fifty more-" here is our faith, do not be afraid of us, vote for us on a policy of moderate protection." At the same time we have hon. gentlemen across the way saying in Western Canada " vote for us as free traders pure and simple, seeking free trade with United States, and with Great Britain first, and then with all the world." Then we have the leader-who hopes to be the leader of both parties if they get into power-trying to sing a song that attunes with each, and telling the people in all ends of Canada that the Liberal party and the Liberal platform are, to all intents and purposes, the same as 'the farmers' party and the farmers' platform. That is to say that protection and free trade are to all intents and purposes the same. The one principle is the profession of my hon. friends opposite, the other principle is the profession of hon. gentlemen on the cross benches; and the leader (Mr. King) claiming them both as his own in order to pave the way for the great betrayal when the day comes, if it ever comes, that their

united numbers are greater than the numbers behind the present Government.
Now I stated a moment ago that in this country to-day we had not anything in the nature of an immoderate tariff. It may be -it doubtless is the case-that there are portions of that tariff that can be scaled down, that upon investigation it will be seen that deductions can be made. There may be other changes that may be necessary. The principle upon which the revision will be made is clear and well defined and all understand it. It will be designed to keep industries in Canada, to enable industries to expand, but wTill go no further than is essential for that purpose when accompanied by competent business management. Now surely that principle is plain. Will the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) say he could not support a tariff designed for that purpose and with that restraint? He could not say so. Why do not hon. gentlemen who believe in the principle I am expounding and who know this tariff is true to that principle-why do they not support it? Just in order that a political manoeuvre may be played and for no other reason whatsoever.
We have direct taxation now in this country, and the Government that imposed it is the Government in office. The Government that took all the responsibility and unpopularity of imposing direct taxation, that is the Government that new appeals to this House of Commons. The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), the great champion of direct taxation, who has been preaching it in season and out of season all over this country, votes against the Government of direct taxation. He votes for hon. gentlemen opposite who never introduced the policy of direct taxation, and he holds the sheltering hand of his protection over Provincial Governments that do not put on the direct taxation that he advocates. Let us now have an examination into the policy of the hon. member. He says "I want to do away with custom duties." That is what he tells the people of the West,-do away with them. "It is no way in the world," he says, "to raise a revenue." "It is the most costly wray'' is the way he expresses in Brandon "ever devised by man."


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: "Hear, hear," the hon. gentleman says to-day; he says: put in its place income tax, a graduated income tax, and a tax on the unearned increment of land. That is his statement. His platform

does not call for a tax on the unearned increments of land but for a tax on the unimproved value of land, a different thing altogether. However, I want the House to know that those are his two main substitutes. The others are purely provincial taxes, inheritance and the like-those first are the two main substitutes the hon. gentlemen advocates-land tax, and income tax. Now I hold in my hands the report of a tax commission appointed by the Government of Manitoba, the Government which is very close to the hon. member for Marquette, and whose continuance in office is one of the things dearest to his heart. I am not saying anything against that Government at the present time, that is not an issue in this debate; I am saying something about the consistency of the hon. member. That Government appointed a commission, and so far as I know a commission of pretty able men, to go into the question of this taxation and to report to the administration. That commission was composed of, I think, ten or a dozen men. There were represented on it the farmers of Manitoba, representatives of the rural councils of that province. Other interests in Manitoba were also represented, and among them the actual Grain Growers Association that is the very party that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crerar) champions and leads in this House. They were directly represented on that commission by two men. Of these, one, Mr. Peter Wright, is a director of the Canadian Council of Agriculture, is he not?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: One of the directors.


Arthur Meighen: One of the directors of the Canadian Council of Agriculture, the council that propounded this Farmers' platform, and Mr. W. Wood is the secretary of the Farmers' party in Manitoba. Now the commission examined into this land tax, it examined into the income tax, it examined into single tax, and all other taxes; it reported against single tax in the most decisive terms. On discussing the merits of the land tax, a tax on land of any kind-on unimproved land or an unearned increment tax-it decided that a tax on land was a good thing by local authorities for local purposes but that a tax on land was a bad thing for the federal authorities for any purpose at all. 1 have the very words of that report in front of me.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Did Messrs. Wright and Wood sign that report?


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Wright signed the report. Mr. Wood did not sign the report

but he made no minority report. I have the -report before me and Mr. Wright's signature appears thereon. Here is what they say about the land tax:
There are accordingly several cogent reasons why the taxation of real property has tended more and more to become the special prerogative of the local authorities. For the Dominion Government in this country, for example, to encroach on the field of real property taxation would, in the light of both history and theory, be a distinctly retrograde step.
And that is one of the taxes that the Farmers' party led by the hon. member for Marquette says that we should adopt, that is one of the fields he says we should invade which the Manitoba Government commission unanimously find-every man who signs the report finds-to be debarred by its own nature from adoption by the federal authorities for any purpose. Then they go on to the income tax, and what do they say about it? I am sorry that the hon. member for Bed Deer is not here. This would be very interesting to that hon. member who complains of the small amount of income tax collected from the farmers. The commission quote with approval what Professor Adams says:
The income tax yields little or no revenue in rural or farming districts, and for that reason I would not recommend it to farming comtnuri-ties; but for thickly settled manufacturing and urban communities, it is bound to spread and in the end to supplant the relatively unjust and unfair tax on personal property.
This seems to toe the prevailing opinion everywhere.
Tn the income tax provisions of the province of Ontario we find that the income of fanners derived from the produce of their farms is expressly exempted from taxation under the income tax law.
We have carefully and fully considered this feature, and recommend that the provisions of any general income law that may be enacted in this province, be confined wholly and exclusively to urban communities.
It is to be borne in mind that the application of a provincial income tax to the farmer would, in any event, be lost energy, in that, if such were imposed, and the amount derived in each municipality was returned to the source derived, it would be equivalent to travelling north by south.
There is the report of this commission unanimously adopted and concurred in by a director of the Canadian Council of Agriculture, Mr. Peter Wright. Mr. Peter Wright is a man for whose opinion and personality I have the profoundest respect. He is a man who has rendered splendid service in our soldier settlement work. Mr. Peter Wright, after investigation, signs that report and says that, of the substitute taxes which the hon. member 172
for Marquette proposes to take the place of the customs tax, the land tax is one we should not adopt and that the income tax is all right so long as we do not touch the farmers of Canada. I will ask the hon. member for Marquette-I will not ask hilm to reply now but I will be happy if he will reply when he takes his feet: Does he propose to repudiate Mr. Peter Wright who has gone into this case and got the evidence, and who is a director of his own association, and one of the framers of its platform, or does he propose to change his policy?
I stated to the House that the tax on large incomes in England was lower than in Canada. This is interjected out of its place because I did not have the figures before me then. I stated that the turning point was about incomes of $200,000. I have been sent over from the Finance Department the figures which give the tax on incomes of $100,000, $500,000 and up to $1,000,000. I do not have the figures for an income of $200,000, but I think that is about the turning point. The tax on incomes of $500,000 in Canada, under last year's scale, is $303,190. The tax on the same income in the United States is exactly the same amount. The tax on the same income in Great Britain is $257,321, or almost $50,000 less than the. tax that we collect in Canada.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Would the hon. gentleman give the tax on an income of $100,000?


Arthur Meighen: An income of $100,000 is more heavily taxed in England, and so are smaller incomes all down the line. The tax on an income of $100,000 in Canada is $31,190 and in the United States the same. In England the tax is $47,327. Coming to the incomes of $1,000,000, our tax is $663,190 while the British tax is $519,812.77, or a difference of almost $150,000, between the tax on a million-dollar income in England and in Canada. Yet, we are upbraided-upbraided, it is true, for political purposes and no other- by hon. gentlemen opposite who say we are protecting the rich man and the millionaire and that we ought to follow the example of England. Our tax with respect to all these cases of high income is emphatically higher than in England, it is higher than in Australia, higher than in that paradise of income taxation referred to by the hon. member foT Red Deer, New Zealand. Their tax on an income of $1,000,000 is $374,993- away below ours; and on an income of $500,000 it is $187,496 or very little more than half the tax in Canada.



I have sought to show that the tariff as now proposed should remain in effect pending a thorough revision, which, hon. gentlemen opposite admit could not have been made up to the present time. The hon. member for Red Deer clearly admitted that. This is the tariff, and not higher, but lower than that adopted by hon. gentlemen opposite when they were in office under circumstances of far less urgent need. It is admitted to be a tariff which is lower than that which hon. gentlemen opposite unanimously supported all through those fifteen years. It is a tariff not designed to benefit the rich in this country; it is designed, s* far as our own information goes-and it cannot be complete without investigation only to give such measure of assistance ar to retain within this country its industrial strength, and which does not alienate from this country a measure of the industrial strength that we have. We never can have a high tariff in Canada. We cannot have a high tariff in Canada for the most obvious reasons. In the first place, a high tariff is unsound in principle in that it tendto eliminate one of the factors of competition, namely, foreign goods. Foreign goods should be allowed to enter into competition under fair conditions in this or in any other country. But the conditions under free trade or without protection are such that the foreign competitor has every advantage.
Take an illustration. Here is a foreign competitor in the United States competing with the manufacturer in England. Are the conditions equal? Is a man in the United States, where he can get the biggest concern, the biggest industrial unit, the biggest output, in the same position as the man in England? He can have a much larger unit. He has a market of 110,000,000 assured to him right at home that no government can take awTay. In Great Britain he has another market of 43,000,000 almost at hand and free of access to him. He has the same show exactly as the British manufacturer in all the other countries of the world. He therefore has a free market of 153,000,000 to sell his output to. Where is his British competitor? What is his position?	He has the bars up against
him in the United States; he cannot get into that market save over the tariff wall. He has the same restrictions against him in other countries of the world and all he has left to him is that portion of his own home market of 43,000,000 that may be uninvaded by the products of other lands. Is that equal competition? Bring similar conditions here and you would soon paralyze and destroy the whole

industrial fabric of this country. So I say we cannot have any immoderate or high tariff for the reason, first, that it tends to exclude that healthy element of fair conditions, namely, foreign competition; secondly, we have in Canada a territory of wide extent. We have one portion of Canada, newer than the other portion, a more predominatingly agricultural country, newer to manufactures and industrial development, and consequently the advantages of the tariff do not accrue to them as yet as they ultimately will accrue to them. They come more immediately to one portion of this country than to another. On account of these two reasons we must always have in this country nothing more than a moderate tariff under any conditions whatsoever. That will be the purpose of the revision, under the principles clearly set out, enunciated by the Minister of Finance, to which we adhere. On that policy I appeal to hon. gentlemen who have something great or small at stake in this Dominion- yes, I appeal to citizens, men and women who have nothing of this world's goods at stake, whose only concern is the well-being of their native land. There are those among us who will not see with their eyes or hear with their ears or understand with their hearts; there is that class in Canada, as in England, and there always will be in every country. I cannot appeal to those to whom experience has taught nothing and for whom reason has no persuasion. But to all others who will thoroughly study the needs of Canada; who will thoroughly study the example of other nations, and most of all, the example of the Mother Country herself-I appeal to them to yield support to what is fair and right. Come what may, good or ill fortune, I prefer to be of the number of those who have stood loyally by clear and well-defined and well-tried principles, who have been loyal to them in office and out of office, rather than among those who have two policies, one to profess and the other to practice.


Marie Joseph Demers: Mr. Speaker, I will not intervene in the contest between the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) and the member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), because I admit I am not big enough to throw any light upon the question, for instance, whether the balance of trade should be considered in connection with the fiscal policy to be adopted by any country. I must say that after the speech of the Minister of the Interior I am more than ever in the dark as to that question of balance of trade. He told the House

that 'Germany and the United States were prosperous with a balance of trade in their favour, and that England was prosperous with an adverse balance of trade. This question has been an open one for centuries; I think that it will continue so for some few centuries to come.
The Minister of the Interior read to the House lengthy quotations from the report of a commission appointed to study economic conditions in England. The fact remains that since that report was submitted in 1918 nothing has been done to comply with the findings of the majority of the commissioners. We all know that many by-elections have since been held in England, and I do not think that the electors there approved in any shape or form of the changes proposed in that report.
I wish to refer to what the Minister of the Interior said in respect to a statement made by the member for Antigonish and Guys-borougn (Mr. Sinclair). He said that the Auditor General's Report is open to revision and investigation by the Public Accounts Committee. I would like to remind the minister that the volume containing the particular item in question was brought down only last week, so we have had no time to take it up before the Public Accounts Committee.
The question before the House is a very important one. The ground has been pretty well covered since the beginning of this debate, but there are certain matters upon which I desire to express my views. I listened with interest to the speech of the Minister of Finance, which has been awaited with curiosity, I may say with anxiety. I was disappointed in it, because I found that the most important problem that confronts us, the cost of living, had not received the least consideration from this Government. I was disappointed to a certain degree, but not to the extent of being surprised, because it is well known that the Government have done absolutely nothing to bring relief to the consumers who have suffered and are still suffering to the extent of depriving themselves of certain necessities of life. All that the Government did on that account was to create a body known as the Board of Commerce, which, in my judgment, was an absolute failure. It will be said, I know, that the problem of the cost of living is a very difficult one. We all know that; but we all know also that it is not a more difficult problem in this country than it is in other countries. We know what has been done in some other countries, and we can appreciate the good results of the drastic
m*
measures which have elsewhere been taken against profiteers. The effect of the application of these measures, Mr. Speaker, was magic; to-day we witness a real race in the United States in the lowering of prices. England as well has taken action to fight profiteers and the high cost of living; the same is true of France and many other countries. Here we have had investigations which have shown how we have been oppressed by the profiteers in connection with the necessaries of life. It has been established that canners and packers and proprietors of refrigerating plants are madnljy responsible for the increase in the price of foodstuffs. To my mind, it would have been easy to check them by a proper and strict control of their operations and by the enactment of laws providing stern punishment for unreasonable profiteering. The Government have been warned again and again without success. Notwithstanding the negligence of the Government in that regard to date, the people of this country were expecting an announcement of some measures of relief on the occasion of the presentation of the Budget. They expected that the production of foodstuffs would be stimulated by the removal of customs duties from agricultural implements and the necessaries of life generally. They, however, failed to see anything of the kind in the speech of the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), and their only comfort is to learn that the Government need money and that the people will be called upon to pay the bill. Increased taxes all along-that is the only relief offered to the people in the critical situation in which we are. We all admit that Canada must meet her obligations and that for that purpose the Government must levy taxes; but the reproach that we have to make to the Government is that we are called upon to pay for extravagances and waste, and also to pay our war debt when that war debt should have been paid during the war and since by the war profiteers and not by the whole community.
The other day the Minister of Finance spoke about economy. We can hardly reconcile the strong plea he made the other day for economy with the Estimates of $12,000,000 for military expenses. We cannot share the hopes of the Minister of Finance for the future of this country when we consider the shipbuilding policy of the Government. We cannot hope for financial success in the future when we consider the railway policy of this Government. I am not a pessimist, but for me to become an optimist would require a change of Gov-

ernment. If the ministers of the Cabinet are anxious to do something for the good of the country, let them dissolve Parliament. This is the wish of the people-of farmers, soldiers, labourers and consumers-and nobody can deny that. The people are not satisfied that we were elected in normal times and by normal means, and they believe that we received only a war-time mandate, because that mandate was given in a war-time election. Why should the Government accentuate uneasiness, discontent and indignation, by refusing to comply with the general and obvious desire of the people?
The Minister of Finance is standing by protection or by what is called generally the "National Policy." I am glad that this opportunity is afforded to me to express my views on the economic question as regards this country. I am not a protectionist; I stand for the Liberal platform of 19X9 as enunciated at the Liberal convention, I am for a tariff for revenue. I want to speak frankly. If I had been in politics in 1878, I would have opposed the so-called National Policy, and I believe the situation and1 the conditions of the country in 1896, after eighteen years of that regime, would have justified my calculations.
The National Policy led the country to the verge of bankruptcy; it created large fortunes for a few privileged people; but it was detrimental to the great majority of the people of Canada. I am opposed to the so-called National Policy, although I must admit that in the framing of a fiscal policy for this country, we must take into consideration actual conditions as they were produced by such a policy. In 1893, the Liberal party pronounced itself in favour of the principle of greater freedom of trade, and to-day, the party is charged with not having fulfilled its promises in this respect. Every day we hear that the fiscal policy of the Liberal party when in power was the same as that of the Conservative party, and opponents of the Liberal party are naturally interested in trying to create that impression. It seems as if they fail to remember the great fiscal modifications brought about by the Laurier Government; they seem to forget that the Laurier Government lowered the customs duties on about 150 articles of the tariff and abolished the duties on many other articles of the tariff. They would not admit the real endeavour of the party to apply its principles, and in their appreciation of the fiscal policy of the Liberal party, they fail to take into consideration the fact that we had in this country during eighteen years previously to 1896, a regime
fM. Demers. 1
of high protection. Was the Liberal party wheen it came into power to act by revolution or by evolution? The wisdom of the leaders induced them to choose the way of moderation and good order, and the party moved on gradually towards its aim, succeeding in reaching the reciprocity treaty of 1911. The fiscal policy of the Liberal party from 1896 to 1911 has been such that not one of its followers with lower-tariff tendencies thought it necessary to withdraw his allegiance from his party during the fifteen years of the Liberal administration. There were some Liberals who left the party because of its fiscal policy, but only those who were high protectionists. It is unfair to say that there is no difference between the Liberal and the Tory fiscal policies, for everybody knows that the Liberal party fell in 1911 in trying to put its principles of a low tariff into effect. There is absolutely no justification for saying that there is no difference between the two parties when not only were promises made but the Reciprocity Treaty was effected between the United States and iCanada. In view of that treaty,
I can hardly forgive those who persist in saying there is no difference between the Liberal and the Tory party fiscal policies.
It is not worthy, it seems to me, for a public man to appear not to appreciate the differ- , ence that does exist between the two parties. The Liberal party stands by its principles. We have not changed. More than ever we believe that the application of a tariff for revenue should be the fiscal policy of this country, and that considerable reductions should be made in the tariff in the interests of the welfare and prosperity of this country.
With protection we have created large cities, but that policy has been detrimental to the farming community. Our country is mainly agricultural, and instead of establishing a policy the effect of which was to bring into the cities our young men of the country, I think it would have been far better to concentrate our energies on the development of our agricultural industry. For my part I would prefer Montreal with a population of 300,000 men and the other 300,000 on the farms, because I would be sure then that that other 300,000 would be engaged in the production of the first necessities of life. Agriculture is our principal natural resource. By high protection it has been deprived of the labour it requires to such a degree that a very serious problem has been created and is facing us at the present time. I have no hesitation in saying that because of the shortage of farm labour

our farms are producing only about half of what they could produce. This is the direct result of high protection, and we must face the situation. We must do something to improve our agricultural industry. I regret that there is nothing substantial to be found in the Budget to help relieve conditions in this vital industry. The Finance Minister should have immediately decided on the free admission of agricultural implements, and should have reached the conclusion that the Reciprocity Treaty of 1911 should be revived. The minister gives us a promise of tariff revision, but can we take his declaration as a certainty or even as a probability after the promise we had last year from another Minister of Finance of this same administration? The Finance Minister, however, has spoken of having a revision of the tariff. If such a revision ever takes place let us hope that its principle will be a tariff for revenue without a vestige of protection, for protection means privilege. We have made immense sacrifices in the past to establish the industries of this country, some of which were what I might call exotics; that is, they had to get all their materials from other countries. Some of them now are very prosperous indeed, and, due to the fact that the Government has given them such high protection, we have witnessed the scandalous spectacle of some of these industries selling their products cheaper in Europe than in Canada. I say, let these industries take care of themselves now that they are strong, and if they are to receive any protection out of the tariff, let that protection be only incidental. If we had given to agriculture the protection that has been given to other industries what a prosperous and happy population would be ours to-day. If we had had more solicitude and paid more attention to the development of our natural industries, such as mines, pulp, paper, furniture and all those industries using lumber or iron and steel as their raw materials, we would certainly have had a much more prosperous country to-day and a more contented and a happier people.
Those are my views on the fiscal question. I shall leave to other hon. members to answer the arguments of the Minister of the Interior specifically, because there are answers to give. I have given my reasons for favouring a tariff strictly for revenue, that is to say, the establishment of customs duties in order to get the money necessary for the good administration of this country.


Mr. EDGAR KEITH SPINNEY (Yarmouth and Claire) :: Mr. Speaker, I have hesitated in engaging in the debate on the very important subject now before the House, feeling that both the hon. members of this House and the public generally were already over-fed by the conflicting views expressed by hon. members.
May I be permitted, Sir, first to join with many other members of this House in extending to the hon. Minister of Finance (Six Henry Drayton) my very hearty congratulations on the great care and honesty of purpose , he has displayed in preparing his Budget, and on his clear and lucid manner of presenting it to this Parliament. His declaration of the huge debt confronting this country shows no disposition to suppress the ghastly facts.
While it is not my purpose to refer at any length to the horrors of the atrocious war which convulsed the nations of the world, and in which Canada was so deeply involved, I cannot permit this occasion to pass without giving expression to our deep gratitude to our brave soldiers who so courageously and promptly obeyed the call to arms in defence of liberty, justice and democracy-three principles for which all Canadians in conjunction with other portions of this great Empire stand. Their services are far beyond commercial value, as the enjoyment of our liberty to-day is due to their great bravery and valour in conjunction with the army of the Allies.
We are also proud as Canadians of the hearty co-operation of all our people in that crisis by their willing and generous response in providing the adequate funds necessary in the successful carrying out of that great war. I desire especially to pay a high tribute to the women of Canada who took so prominent a part in this important movement. They indeed set a good examlple to the sterner sex in the great sacrifices they made and in the successful efforts they achieved in connection with Red Cross work and in their constant endeavours to send comfort to our noble soldiers in the trenches. We can well say, from the depths of our hearts, God bless the women of Canada.
While the penalty of this terrible conflict from a financial standpoint is great, yet it has no comparison with the loss involved When, approximately, 60,000 of our brave soldiers were called upon to pay the supreme sacrifice. Our hearts go forth in deep sympathy to those who were called upon to mourn the loss of their near and dear ones. The sacrifice of these valuable lives to this nation cannot be estimated or overcome.


Mr. J. E. FONTAINE (Hull):: (Translation) : Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in the discussion on the Budget, I do not intend to retain the attention of the House for a long criticism of what the honourable ministers and the honouiaible members sitting to your right may have said. Moreover, in spite of their great speeches, as far as I am concerned, the situation is always the same. The Union Government, which was born in the midst of prejudices and racial divisions, and constituted for the sole purpose of winning the elections, never had any other fiscal policy that that of the old Tory party.


Mr. McMASTER (Translation):: Hear,
hear.


Joseph-Éloi Fontaine: When it was formed, the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) had intended, by calling a few Liberals into his Government, to make the people believe that the principles of the two great political parties were equally represented in the new Cabinet. But to-day, Mr. Speaker, when three so-called Liberal ministers have resigned and have jiot been replaced, and when, on a total of fifteen ministers, there are but four left who are supposed to be Liberals, can it be claimed that the Liberal party is really represented? I say supposed Liberals, because one cannot seriously believe that the honourable President of the Council (Mr. Rowell), the hon. Minister of Immigration (Mr. Calder), the honourable Solicitor General (Mr. Guthrie), and the honourable Secretary of State (Mr. Sifton) do represent the Liberal idea in the Cabinet; so much so, that not a single one of the four gentlemen whom I have mentioned could get elected in any division of the country as a Liberal, and, Mr. Speaker, you are well aware of the fact that, long ago, they have sacrificed their
political principles to retain their portfolios as ministers. Therefore, it is not to be wondered at that the Government should wish to maintain its protection policy. May I be permitted, Mr. Speaker, to say right away, that I have no confidence in the protection which had no other effect (than to enrich a certain class and to keep the people in a condition of hardship.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Hear,
hear.


Joseph-Éloi Fontaine: I want
the tariff to be lowered. I believe in the Liberal platform which was accepted at the great convention of August last, and where every province and every class was represented; I have confidence in that platform, I believe that when it is put into effect, it twill bring comfort to this country and will restore peace within its limits; we shall, then, hear no more of the uneasiness now prevailing among the workingmen, or of any United Farmers' party, because the Liberal flag is wide enough to shelter all the groups under its folds; it wilt satisfy the workingmen by lowering the cost of living, by doing away with the middlemen and the trusts who are growing rich at the expense of the people; it will satisfy the farmers by abolishing the duties on the. farming implements and on all that which is necessarily required for a greater production.
Sir, I said that protection is the policy of the Government. That is so true that for two years they have been promising a readjustment of the tariff without ever redeeming their pledge. During the first session of 1919, I remember, the Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White), who was also Acting Prime Minister, only succeeded in placating his supporters by stating in the House that a committee would be named at once to travel around the country and revise the tariff. Over a year has passed away since then and nothing has been performed yet, and this year, facing the same wranglings among his supporters, the present Minister of Finance attempted to make the same promise, but the trick had been detected and the remedy was not as efficient. Having been deceived last year by the former Minister of Finance, they demanded the pledge of the real Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden). But it was a serious, a very serious matter to disturb the Prime Minister who was sick, who had left a year ago for distant lands in order to recuperate. True it is that the press informed us now and then that he was recovering,


Andrew Ross McMaster: Dont
forget the profiteers.


Mr. FAFARD (Translation):: Mr. Speaker I would never finish if I were to recite all the instances of extravagance on the part of the present Government, an extravagance only too plainly revealed to-day by the taxes saddled on the country. Who will be taxed to pay for all the boards of enquiry appointed for the sole purpose of paying swollen salaries to political friends? Of what benefit were all these commissions? What did they do to decrease the cost of living? Absolutely nothing, Mr. Speaiker; instead they were perhaps instrumental in furnishing the -profiteers with information which helped them to mulct the people even more.


Ernest Lapointe: And thus increase the cost of living.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: This year we are going to spend millions on a standing army doubled since the conclusion of peace. During the war, in which we had such a glorious share, we were told in this House that all these sacrifices were necessary to encompass the defeat of Prussian militarism. Having seen the strength of our standing army doubled, having heard

certain hon. members on the other side of the House call upon the Government to establish compulsory military service, haven't we the right, Mr. Speaker, to conclude that the Government wants to set up militarism in Canada?


Mr. H. A. MACKIE (Translation):: No.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: So much
the better, then. Isn't the Government mocking those who gave their lives for a cause that was dear to them and who to-day are sleeping the glorious sleoip of sacrificed heroes? Isn't it mockery in the face of the people of Canada to spend their gold foT the establishment in this country of a system they gave their blood to destroy beyond the sea?
Either militarism is a good thing or it is not. If it be a good thing, Mr. Speaker, I wonder why we made such tremendous sacrifices to accomplish its downfall in Europe; and if it he a had thing I am at a loss to understand the Governments efforts to bring it into being in this country.
The hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken), whom I congratulate on his eloquent speech the other day, told ns how he became converted to toTyism. He told us that his father was a Liberal and that he himself had been a Liberal up to the time when he was 21 years of age; according to the hon. member, when he was 21 neither party was any good and, since he could do no worse he voted for Sir John A. Macdonald. That is the only reason he gave this House for his political conversion. It appears to me that the hon. member would have great difficulty in finding a worse Government than the one we have to-day and he would1 he perfectly justified in declining to oppose any longer those who sit on your left, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member for West Toronto, whose absence from the Chamber I notice with regret, spoke of the tremendous saving effected by the Government in letting out 300 employees of the Printing Bureau; however, if I remember correctly, we voted last year something like $500,000 to replace these 300 employees. I can't say that I find that veTy much of a saving. If the hon. member is of the opinion that the Government saved a lot of money by letting out 300 employees he will likely be scandalized to learn that this same Government has taken on 27,000 new employees since the end of the war.
As a consequence of such a policy we behold our young country to-day carrying a eolassal burden of taxes on all the necessaries of life.
[ Mr. Fafard.]
Those who raise a numerous family destined to furnish the country with valuable hands to insure production, will pay four or five times more taxes than the others.
I am in favour of taxing luxuries, but I do not consider that, at this time, a $9 pair of hoots or a $45 suit of clothes are articles of luxury. -, Nothing in the preparation of this budget has 'been done to decrease the high cost of giving.
Hoarders fill their storehouses with enormous quantities of goods in order to bring about a rise in the prices. There is, at this moment, more sugar in the Canadian warehouses than there has ever been. The Government knows this, and it would be very easy to have a law permitting inspectors to go and visit suoh warehouses, and obliging the hoarders to put upon the market at current prices the commodities with which they are stocked, causing a rise in the cost of living. But the Government protects these profiteers at the expense of the public.
If you read the Budget carefully, Mr. Speaker-even though you will have heard a lot about ito-you will find that two classes only have not been taxed. You might believe at first blush that one of them is the (Soldiers that have returned from the front ,and of whom we heard so much during the war; but no, these soldiers, foi the Government supporters, are an interest of the past. Their praise iwas on their lips during the war; but no, these soldiers, for the Govern-one of the members who sit on your right .will he willing to give them any credit. If we are to judge from their utterances in this House, it is evident that it was they and not the soldiers who won the war. _
The only two classes of persons or things, which escaped taxing are the profiteers and ithe orders in council.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Hear,
hear.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: A revision of (the tariff would have had a good effect on the cost of living and would have reduced it. Nothing was done. I say that in order to decrease the cost of living, and towards (furthering the general good of the country, a revision of the tariff is imperative at the present moment. The Government have no aright to overburden the people with taxes jn order to allow there favorites to build colossal fortunes. These favorites are but a few while the consumer is the whole people. In a democratic country, all the citizens

should he equal and enjoy the same privileges.
The hon. members of the right seem to believe that the fact of our favouring a decrease of the tariff shows a desire to ruin industry. A lowering of the tariff Would have altogether another effect. The result would be manufacturing in larger quantities, as well as an increase in the revenue of the country.
It does not require to be an expert, but a little good will is sufficient, to understand that it is not so much the high rate of duty which piles up revenue as the quantity of goods coming through the customs. If you add to the tariff on certain articles, the present rate of exchange, you will find it altogether prohibitive.
Everybody complains, and justly, of the high cost of living and of the dearness of food. The cost of articles of food, as of the other commodities, varies according to the law of supply and demand, and it is evident to any observer that, since the war, the equilibrium has been destroyed.
When two workmen come to an employer and ask for work, it is the employer who fixes the pay; but when two employers seek the labour of one workman, it is the workman who settles the price. What is true in one case is true in the other. When there are ten workmen that are consumers to one farmer who produces, it is the farmer who fixes prices, and when there are ten farmers producing to one workman to consume, it is the workman who decides what shall be paid. Hence, I come to the conclusion that, for the last few years, our industries, owing to protection, have gone on at a faster rate-too fast even-at a faster rate than agriculture, which was neglected by the Government. If the commodities are too dear, it is evident that we must turn our efforts towards agriculture. It is true that the task is difficult and alarming, for the young are drawn towards the towns by the high isalaries, amusements and shorter working days. It is absolutely impossible to find hands to work the land, the working hours are longer and the work is hard. The little money which the farmer puts by in the year, is due to his foresight, his economical way of living, and his long hours of labour. The farmers do not complain at all, they are happy and content with their lot. They only ask one thing from the city people: it is to cease their malevolent criticism. They do not blame the workmen for their day's work being shorter than their own. They do not begrudge them the few
dollars which they can spend' on amusements, for they understand that a man living in a city must need have recreation- They have no objection either to the workman eating oleomargarine if he wishes, provided1 this stuff does not sell for more than in other countries and is so marked that it may not be sold for butter.
It is said the farmer sells his produce too dear. The farmer does not go out of his way. It is the dealer who comes and offers him the price at which he sells his goods.
I can assure the hon. members on the otherside of the House who .live in cities, that if they paid for foodstuffs the price at which they are sold in the country, they would enjoy immediately a great decrease in the cost of living, and I can assure them at the same time that if the farmers sold their produce at the prices they sell for in the cities they would all he rich men. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, the middleman is the one to blame; and not only does he comer the goods, hut he allows them to spoil. In the city of Montreal alone, 366,000 pounds of meat and vegetables were confiscated last year.
Besides the farmer is himself a workman, a workman in the first, the largest of all industries, agriculture. The tillers of the soil, in the early days of the colony, were not only settlers, they were heroes; armed with an axe they pushed hack the forest, and armed with a gun they fought the enemy; not only did they succeed in broadening their land, they secured it to the British Crown; inch by inch they have brought it under cultivation and inch, by inch they have defended it. This soil on which they live to-day, bathed with the sweat of their brow, they love it, they are jealous for it. They know no other fatherland than Canada; they are in this country the true Canadians. I call the attention of the Government to that class of citizens. They are the only ones who can bring about our return to the days of peace.
The faults that bring blame upon the present Government are one of the principal causes of unrest in the country. The ministers resign one after the other; they change portfolios so often that even the members of this House have ceased to know who are the heads of the different departments. The right hon Prime Minister is at home everywhere but in Canada. No sooner does a vacancy occur in a desirable post than the hon. members, all conscious of the fact that they cannot be elected again, all turn greedy eyes towards it.

There is a talk of appointing a representative at Washington, and if we knew the secrets of the ministerial circles, we should be surprised at the stir and discontent which is caused by this coming appointment-The hon. President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) had been pointed to for this post; but the arrival of the Prime Minister seems to have unsettled the question. While on this side of the House we iare not made acquainted with the ministerial secrets, we fully surmise that there are more than two candidates for the position.
This Government have ceased to represent more than a part of the country. The interests of all the counties from Montreal to Halifax have been altogether ignored by them.
It would have ben a good policy this year to have fostered an -agricultural immigration to help the farmer, and also to have reduced -the duties on implements o-f production. Instead of taxing the people in order to procure a revenue, the Government might easily have adopted a policy tending to increase revenue through the development of our natural resources.
I think it is time, Mr. Speaker, that the Unionist tribe should bury the hatchet and that the hon. President of the Council should smoke the pipe of peace with his colleagues; I think it is time for us to cease talking war and to turn our attention towards cultivating good relations with our -allies, -and to the securing of a place in their markets.
I fear to weary yon, Mr. Speaker, hut I would also suggest to the ministers who have on various occasions to represent us in London, not to he content with abiding by the suggestions which they hear made to them, hut to affirm there as they do in this House, that Canada is a nation and that as such we have the right to he respected. I would ask them to affirm our royalty, but not to represent us as valets ready to do any bidding.
In order that the restoration of onr country may become an accomplished fact, Mr. Speaker, we need more unity between the different races ; it is absolutely necessary that all Canadians should join hands in the pursuit o-f the same ideal, that is to say make -a grand nation of this Canada of ours.
Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, I shall conclude my remarks in English. I thank you.

On the motion of Mr. Edwards the debate was adjourned.
On the motion of Rt. Hon. Mr. Doherty, the House adjourned at 11.15 p.m.
Wednesday, May 26, 1920